Illustration © Heather Castles (a.k.a Ebony Miller)

Published at Northern Cards, 2003

I’m so excited, today was launch day for Good Dog Design’s new game ‘Matchmaker,’ an member-only game for Novanet members. I was on the team at GDD collaborating with the concept for this game, and contributed some written content for the game… our sick sense of humour comes out here and there! The game will run for the next couple weeks, and lots of great prizes will be won. It’s an absolutely fantastically fun game, where you play as a Love God, and the object of the game is to match up as many mortals to form couples as you can! Ever wonder if William Shatner & Angelina Jolie would hit it off? The game is based on meddling in other’s love lives and seeing how good you are at making a match. And to top it off…you can meddle in other people’s games too, stealing their hot singles, or breaking up their couples, just for the fun of it! Ah, it’s a fun game.

(Illustration by Heather Castles © Hallmark)

A colleague passed this along to me today…the concept art of Mathias Verhasselt. This is one of my favourites of his digital artwork.

Pssst… Publishers’ Catalogue is one of my little secrets for finding illustration work! I use this as my starting point when researching different types of publishers to find ones who my work may be suited to. You can browse through publishers by location (city, state, country) or by type (calendar, children’s books, e-books, etc.) It has links to the publisher’s websites, and there you can get to know what they do, whether your work suits the type of books they sell, and then find information on how to submit your samples. Happy browsing!

(If you liked this tip you might also like : How to Prepare Samples to send to Publishers)

My latest illustrated children’s book has gone to print this morning, how exciting! Was the first young adult story to illustrate, and was a lot of fun coming up with what all the girls in the story would wear. ‘Sleepover Party’ is being published by Second Story Press, and is a very cute account of a little girl Rose, who has invited all her friends over for a sleepover. BUT, two of her friends are kinda popular, and don’t like Rose’s best friend, Stacey…and they tell Rose if Stacey is invited, they won’t come! Ah, the drama of being a kid! As I read it I just enjoyed how the story really captures the random fears & thoughts that go through kids heads as they deal with what life dishes out to them. It was a lot of fun to illustrate.

Just finished doing some revisions to the final illustrations for Diane Cantrell’s “Good-bye, Baby Max”… some were minor (botox injections) some were major (plastic surgery.) From brightening Mrs. B’s blonde hair to adding a colourful rug to the classroom, to adding in a new illustration of the momentos left for baby Max, they all improved the illustrations quite a bit. (Read on …)

This is my contribution to the oodles of Star Wars & Kiss memorobilia out there… my take on the Cantina band covering Kiss. If my design tickles the fancy of the Kiss / Star Wars fan in you, please vote for it through the Threadless site! I just love Threadless.

Painting with oils is one of my loves, but cleaning up after isn’t! I was checking out this new site where you can post questions on how to recycle unique items, and I came across one on paintbrushes :

Anyway, in a very unlike us moment, we decided to paint the kitchen last weekend. When we’re done, we washed the emulsion brushes out with water but hit a dilemma with the gloss brushes: is it better to wash them out turps (or some turps substitute as was the actual case) and then pour the resulting painty-turps down the drain or, since they were cheap brushes to start with, just throw them away? …
I’m always inclined towards the throwaway option because even after endless time with a tub of turps, I find it so hard to get the brushes re-usable clean again that I end up throwing them away in the end anyway - but THROWAWAY CULTURE, BAAAAAAD! So you see my dilemma. Since both of those seem pretty bad options, are there any alternatives that we should be considering instead? – Louisa, How Can I Recycle This?

Here’s how you can deal with oily brushes in an environmentally responsible way:

• Buy : only good quality brushes, as they are easier to clean & last longer

• Clean : oily brushes immediately (rather than letting them harden) by squeezing the excess paint from the bristles with a rag. Then when the big globs are squeezed out, dip the bristles in mineral turpentine, then squeeze the bristles to get rid of the paint. Repeat until it seems 99% clean, then wash the bristles with dish soap & water.

• Re-use : old ratty brushes can be reused for messy projects (like applying paint stripper, glue, glazes, etc…)

Then, once the brushes are clean, you can take care of the used turpentine :

• Conserve : When using mineral turpentine, pour only enough into a jar to cover the bristles of the brush (so you don’t have so much turps to filter & clean, and so that your brush bristles don’t get loosened from the ferrule of the brush)

• Clean & Reuse Turpentine : Pour used mineral turps into a glass jar with lid and leave in a cool dark place until the paint has settled to the bottom. Drain the clean (clear looking) turps into a new jar & seal (avoid pouring back into the main bottle if you want to keep it cleaner). Wipe out the paint sludge with a rag and let dry before throwing away.

• Dispose of used turpentine by contacting your  local toxic waste department…DUMPING CHEMICALS DOWN THE TOILET / SINK IS NOT AN OPTION. (yes, that is in bold and in caps, it’s important!) If you are strapped for time, keep chemicals you wish to throw away aside until you have enough to make the trip to your local waste centre.

If you liked these tips, check out :

• • How to Recycle Diluents Safely for Oil Painting
• • E-Cycling At Your Fingertips