Perched 28 floors up at the top of Hong Kong’s fashionable Hotel ICON in Kowloon, Above & Beyond serves up dim-sum and seasonal Cantonese cuisine amid a spectacular harbor view. This upscale restaurant is just minutes away from the bustling urban center of Tsim Sha Tsui, buzzing with shops, restaurants and museums. However, all that excitement melts away the minute you step into Above & Beyond’s sleek, modern realm.
We’re doing a live tweet tasting at Panzano restaurant in downtown Denver tonight starting at 6:30p. Follow along via #Panzano or at @CultureVixen. See you there!
Sure you can clip your nano to anything within arms reach, but if you nod off at work while daydreaming of a top secret life as a double-o or reminiscing about inspector gadget, you know that the nano could be so much more. With music, photos, and all manner of Q inspired gadgetry tucked inside, it could easily be the ultimate all-purpose watch. First, however, you’ll need the ultimate watchband. Enter LunaTik’s CMYK TikTok watch straps for the iPod Nano. Are they worth the geek factor appeal? Are all Nano bands created equal? We took the TikTok CMYK for a spin to find out.
Building cityscapes out of pen, ink and watercolors, Gabriel Campanario can be seen throughout the streets of Seattle capturing the city’s subtle nuances and familiar landmarks both in the pages of his sketchbooks and in his Seattle Sketcher column for the Seattle Times. Even more inspirational is Gabriel’s dedication to the art of sketching. Seeking artistic community and a place to share and celebrate ideas, he spearheaded the Urban Sketchers movement, created to connect artists the world over through the art of sketching. With a network of sketch groups in over 30 countries around the globe, urban sketchers draw on location, immortalizing their cities through lines and colors, and visually sharing their adventures with each other and the world online.
Sketch by sketch, Urban Sketchers has grown and gained momentum, with the latest project resulting in a book filled with over 500 illustrations by artists of all backgrounds. The book not only showcases artists’ sketchbooks, but also discusses each artist’s inspirations, drawing process, and techniques. Inspired to grab her pen and watercolors and start sketching on the spot, Culture Vixen’s Gayle Wheatley caught up with Gabriel to find out more about his illustrated life.
There’s something conspiratorially intimate about looking through an artist’s sketchbook. Filled with raw ideas that encompass both beginnings of larger projects and one-shot passing ideas, flipping through someone’s sketchbook is akin to peeking into someone else’s mind.
With Julia Rothman’s latest book “Drawn In” (Quarry Books) you get to gaze into 44 sketchbooks belonging to fine artists, illustrators, graphic designers and cartoonists around the world.
An hour north of Milan by train lies a little slice of heaven. As the city recedes out the window, buildings give way to flowers and sweeping mountain peaks. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself gliding along a big expanse of blue, as Lake Como (Lago di Como) sweeps into view.
All across Los Angeles, street artist Paige Smith is making the city sparkle. With faux paper geodes that is. And lots of unexpected shapes that represent crystals, quartz, and other mineral formations normally found in nature.
Back in the day actors’ contracts required them to stay within a 100 mile radius of Los Angeles during filming. As a result Palm Springs was born. Known for famed pool parties and Moroccan inspired retro design, Palm Springs has always lured Tinseltown stars, sun worshippers, and design lovers with its fusion of Hollywood glam and Vegas flamboyance.
Netherlands-based designer Ka-Lai Chan’s latest furniture collection, “The Ordinary Family,” is a 5-piece art collection filled with furniture bursting with colorful growths. Each piece is a conceptual work of art, symbolically representing an individual family member.
Stella Im Hultberg* is a talented painter living and working in Brooklyn whose work is wonderfully ethereal. She was born in South Korea and raised in Seoul, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and later California. Her work has an enchanting quality to it, and her sketchbooks are especially fun. You can even browse though entire sketchbook collections on her website.
