With all my encouragement to go green, one thing I hadn’t thought of was offsetting the carbon used by having a blog! I read here that a blog with an average of about 15,000 visits a month would use about 3,6kg (8lb.) of carbon dioxide yearly (caused by the blogs being hosted on their mainframe computers, servers & cooling systems.)

Making it easy to make your blog carbon neutral is the “Make It Green!” team over at kauf-DA. They have a great (and free!) initiative going where they offer to plant one tree for your blog on Arbor Day Foundation in the Plumas National Forest in Northern California. (And you get to sport a swanky seal like this one on your blog!)

It’s free to sign up here and enjoy a tree being planted for your blog!

Last week Hera & I went to see Amococo, a luminarium by UK’s Architects of Air on here during the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Was really beautiful walking barefoot through the inflated labyrinth of colourful tunnels, we caught it at the best time of day when the sun was overhead. Hera thought she’d gone to heaven and didn’t want to leave the “tent,” despite the fact it was around 30 degrees that day and very hot inside the tunnels! We cooled off by putting our faces in the air conditioning fans throughout, and enjoyed getting lost doing several laps of the structure.

Thought I’d pass this site along for any illustrators keen to simplify their invoicing process by using an online-invoicing platform to send, save and follow up on invoices and quotes. Simplybill is flexible in that it works well for those who charge a flat rate, to those who bill by the hour. It’s also very reasonably priced, with plans starting at $5 a month. (If anyone tries it out let me know! …for now I’m still happy doing my own invoices, am a bit of a control freak when it comes to my invoices :)

Yeondoo Jung creates incredibly surreal scenes inspired by children’s drawings in this collection titled Wonderland. I love this piece titled “Cinderella,” especially the crooked lights! I came across Yeondoo’s work through this article about artists who take a grown-up look at children’s drawings over at BrainPickings.org

Here’s a recent look at my painting of a filthy section of waterfront across from the ritziest shopping district in Mumbai. I’ve added mainly neutrals and some lights… not the brightest whites yet, I want to build up the texture and colours first. You can see how it looked before this step here.

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time… illustrators who use children’s drawings and re-render them with their own style. Dave DevRies over at The Monster Engine stays true to the original child’s drawing, but illustrates them in an adult style. I found DevRies art over at Brainpickings. I think this idea is brilliant, would love to give it a go myself!

Eeeeee! So excited, my copies of Riley’s Lost Tooth (Written by Diane Cantrell, Illustrated by moi) arrived in the post! Hera was right into them, opening up each one up, flipping through the pages, then declaring “The End.” I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out, Brown Books did a great job. Riley’s Lost Tooth now available online at Amazon.com. Book launch party in San Antonio is planned for March 27th… I’ll post details later!

I’ve just started on a new painting for our living room from a photo we took in Mumbai, India three years ago (below.) I’m working with acrylic as they are safer to work with around my toddler than oils. And we can share so setup isn’t a big deal – a squirt of paint for Hera, and a squirt of paint for Mommy! The only challenge is keeping Hera from helping me paint my painting, hee hee. The lovely thing about working in acrylic is it dries so quickly, so I’m able to hang it right back up on the wall and be able to consider my next “moves” between paint sittings.

As you can see, after about 40 minutes Hera was tuckered out, so was a very short & sweet painting time!

Tip : Something I learned from Kiff Holland while in college, painting your canvas a bold colour to prime it gives you a fun surface to work on. As you paint over top, leave little flecks of the original bright colour peeking through here and there to give some zing to your painting!

Artybuzz is a new artist community… check ‘em out, you can post your artwork online, sell canvas & giclee prints and other merchandise. Being a new community, there aren’t many in the illustrator category (only 52 illustrators,) which is a bonus as your work could easily get more exposure than some of the crowded established websites. Let me know if you sign up and how you find the process!

I really love Elly MacKay’s mini-theatre scenes… the warm lighting, the colours, the linework, the way she captures a storybook feel in her scenes. You really have to check out her website, her scenes of children have a beautiful old-but-new feel to them.

P.S. My new Chickadee painting by Elly is lovingly in Hera’s room.