Summer’s been on everyone’s mind while working on our most recent wallet series. For Los Angeles-based artist Nick Lu, it meant swimming deep into the heart of the ocean. We took some time to ask this Art Center grad whose work has been seen in the New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, American Illustration and many more a few more things about his work and his passions. Read on:

If you only had three words to describe Nick Lu, what three words would those be?
Positive, creative, sporty

How did you discover your love for illustration?
I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, so it’s been a pretty organic process.

Could you share your favorite illustrations (of any kind). How did they make it on the “favorite list”?
Anything with a cool idea catches my eye, I don’t really care too much about style.

What or who are your current inspirations?
Polish book covers, Tatsuro Kiuchi, Michael Swaney, Gary Panter.

If you had one dream project, what would it be?
Something with a huge circulation, like stamps or currency; collaboration with fashion brand; more editorial illustrations for major magazines would be nice.

Could you tell us a little bit about your wallet design for Poketo? How did you come up with it and what’s going on in the scene?
Hm… let’s see, it was so awesome Angie gave me total freedom on this one (thanks Angie!). I think it was one day a friend asked me what new things would I want to try, I said scuba diving, and we talked about how cool it would be and the fear of being so deep under water, that’s where the image came from.

What a great way to spend a summer day! Thanks for chatting, Nick!

Check out Nick’s wallet at poketo.com
Find more of Nick at nicklu.com

There is something so exuberant about Tad Carpenter’s work. When you see it, it feels like everything is going to be okay. Perhaps it’s his Kansas City roots or maybe it’s just his obvious love for the art and artistry of children’s picture books. Either way, we’re simply lucky to have his bold, joyful work on Poketo. Meet Tad Carpenter!

Tell me a bit about yourself without using the words illustrator, artist, designer.
I am a very disciplined person and love being active. I work out everyday and love that feeling. If it is running, weights, biking whatever I love to be active.

I am all about my family. I am an only child so I am very close with my mother and father. I also have the best wife in the world. Those 3 people mean a great deal to me.

I collect a lot of vintage goods like vintage advertising memorabilia, vintage toys, mid-century books and furniture, old globes and signage. I just love to dig and collect.

What words describe you best?
Disciplined, optimistic, softy, dreamer, glasses, structured.

Your work is full of bold colors and happy monsters. Could you share a few of your illustration inspirations?
I love color. I really try to work that is fun, whimsical and full of optimism. Growing up my favorite thing in the world was picture books. I feel so lucky to be working on my own books now. When I work I think back to some of how Bill Pete‘s drawings made me feel. Or Maurice Sendak, and try to captre a similr sentament.

When I was 5 or 6 years old I met Maurice Sendak and that always stuck with me. His ability to tell a story with made up creatures is amazing and something I try to do as well. Using a fictitious character makes it easy to get your own point across. All preconceived notions that a person or animal has are lost.

I think I slept with my signed Sendak doll for a month after I met him.

You have a diverse career working in illustration. What’s the biggest challenge you face at work?
Time management. When you run your own company you have to do it all. Take out the trash, write proposals, invoice and actually design and illustrate.

You really have to be able to multitask in a major way. But I would not change anything and am a bit of a control freak so having my hands in several things at once is fine with me.

What’s your philosophy on work?
If you don’t love it, don’t do it. Plain and simple.

What has been your favorite project so far?
That is so so hard to say.

I have been branding a restaurant out of Atlanta called Yeah! Burger which I am very proud of. Actually several of the restaurant brands I have created come to mind. I really love branding on that scale.

I am working on several children’s books right now that I am ecstatic about.
Also several smaller projects like the Zion snowboard line, my Holiday Homies and personal holiday cards each year…not sure I can ever pick one. I would say whatever piece is the newest tends to be one of my favorite.

You’ve always lived in Kansas City. Could you tell us a little bit more about Kansas City and share some of the reasons why it is home?
I actually live in Kansas City, Missouri. I love this city, I actually really love the Mid-West in general. Sometimes I feel like Kansas City is secret. A place that people have not tapped into yet.

What I love about Kansas City is pretty simple. Yes, it is obvious the Mid-West is a much lower cost of living than the coast. But, what is amazing about Kansas City is the high level of art and design. A city where Walt Disney lived and created what would eventually be Mickey Mouse, a school like the Kansas City Art Institute that had teachers and students like Robert Rauchenberg, Thomas Hart Benton and John Stuart Curry.

And most important for KC is this is the birth place of the greeting card and Hallmark Cards. Hallmark is still world head quartered here employing hundreds of artist, copywriters, designers, stylist and photographers from all over the world. Because of Hallmark alone a smaller city like Kansas City is loaded with talent.

Tell us a bit about your wallet design for Poketo.
It’s pretty simple. Sailing and boating is an amazingly fun hobby and something that seems like a great get away. This past summer it was so, so hot and all I wanted to do was just get away from the heat. In my mind the idea of a night boat ride under the moon and stars sounded like the perfect remedy for the awful Mid-West heat wave. The closest I came to that night boat ride was this wallet. And that’s just fine.

What do you wish you had the nerve to do?
Become a boxer, skydive or pick up and move to Europe for half the year. Any of those sound so fun to me and totally outside what tend to do.

Did we mention Tad also designed the blue version of the Artful Flyer?

What’s next for Tad Carpenter?
I mentioned several children’s books I am working on. So excited for those. I have a holiday based book I wrote and illustrated , a 4-book board book series I also wrote and illustrated a poetry book all releasing in 2012. I really hope people will like these. Have been so fun to work on.

We’ll be seeing more of you in the bookstores then! Thanks, Tad.

Check out Tad’s wallet at poketo.com.
Find more of Tad at TadCarpenter.com.

By now, you’ve gotten a load of all the new wallets we have, designed by female comic book artists.

It’s hard to choose which of these ladies make us snort and smile the hardest, so we decide to let you decide by asking each one of them to do an illustrated interview. (Warning: may contain mature content.)

Lisa Hanawalt is an artist, cartoonist and illustrator living in Brooklyn. You’ve probably seen a lot of her many drawings of animals in people clothes, but if you’re more of a girly-girl you could have also chanced by her stuff in Glamour or maybe the New York Times, for intellectuals. Without further ado, let’s have Lisa Hanawalt!

Find more of Lisa on lisahanawalt.com.
Check out Lisa’s Hanawallets and mousepads on poketo.com.

Stay tuned for more illustrated interviews!

When we first saw Howie’s wallet design, we were amazed at how much visual information he was able to incorporate within just a few inches of material. We’re not the only ones similarly stunned by his work. He’s been exhibited all around Canada. He’s also been spotted in Beautiful/Decay, Carousel, Color and Border Crossings. His work is also part of the Canada Council Art Bank collection.

We caught up with Howie to ask him what inspired the design and how Chinese ink work may be a lot harder than it looks. Say hello to Howie Tsui:

We read that you moved around a lot—from Hong Kong, Thunder Bay (in Canada), Africa and now back in Canada again. How did that affect your art?
I think these divergent experiences provide me with a more radiant perspective of the world and our place in it. Given, that much of these re-locations happened during my formative years, I think the imprint of these contrasting experiences is actually embedded deeper within my psyche than something that is consciously and painstakingly incorporated into my practice.

Your work is so dense, but the execution isn’t visually taxing at all. How did you first come to work with ink?
I am using Chinese paint pigments for the most part. I started in 2008 working with this material on mulberry paper, which provides a tooth-y texture. The pigmentation is affective in achieving the faux-antiquated look that I was going for.

My move to these materials from, say, oil and canvas, was an intentional departure away from
traditionally Eurocentric mediums. I actually consider these works ‘paintings’, but from my experience applying to a Canadian painting competition, a painting must be on canvas or board.

What’s the most difficult thing about working with ink?
There ain’t really an undo or paint over option. So each stroke, gesture, texture and line is pretty much final.

Could you share what your studio is like and what your materials are?
I have a very modest work/live studio space in my house. It’s basically a master bedroom that I’ve modded with a flat works storage shelf on the ceiling. There’s lots of light, a big ass table, plants
and shelving for books.

My big paintings are rolled up and placed in tubes. Other parts of my house also come into play. There’s a computer area on the main floor for digital and office work, and basement for storage. Outdoors areas are also available, when the tundra hath thawed, for power saws and messier work.

What themes fascinate you and come up most in your artwork?
Hmm. I’m interested in fear and it’s relationship to creativity, imagination, child-rearing, the absurd and it’s historic role in Asian cultures contrasted with its modern day manifestation. There’s a lot more things that I could get into, but you probably don’t want to get me started. I wish I could just say, “I like skulls. Yeah man. And diamonds. Yeah. They bad ass.”

There’s a lot going on in the wallet design you made, could you tell us a little more about it?
The design is taken from segments of my scroll painting “Tengu’s World” (2009) from my Horror Fables series. It features the Japanese folkloric figure of Tengu perched atop a mountain; a rooftop figure who is poisoning a sleeping wife by dripping poison onto a dangling string; impaled lovers; a blue
guy tied to a tree and the Buddhist God of Heavenly Punishment is dunking baddies and biting off heads.

Your works are usually in scroll-format. How large are they usually?
The largest ones are limited to the largest wall I have in the studio. They are 125” x 38”. The tall vertical ones are 75” x 38”. Tengu’s World from the wallet is 72” x 25”.

How do you approach your work? Do you start from one end to another? Or do you work on whichever direction that catches your fancy?
I usually have a few major anchor components in my composition and then areas for mid-sized content and also areas for free unconscious work. Usually bouncing back and forth between areas striving for a balance.

How has your work changed over the years?
My practice has changed and matured quite dramatically in recent years. I’ve been very lucky to receive arts funding which allows my practice to be less affected by fashion and/or commercial pressures, while offering the chance to focus solely on developing projects that are honest, concept-oriented, explorations into that which I find intriguing. I think oppose to first asking myself, “What should this looks like?” I now ask myself “What is this about?”

How do you see your style evolving in the future?
From scroll paintings, I’ve moved to multi-media sculpture and producing magic lantern performances.

Next up, I’m messing around with re-configuring an old pinball machine into a human torso, and making an anatomically incorrect monument of an 1812 warrior out of epoxy-casted bones and organs. Oh and also depictions of self-inflicted diseases in the format of epic war paintings.

Check out Howie’s wallet at poketo.com.
Find more of Howie on howietsui.com.
Check out booooooom at booooooom.com