Environment Canada’s new website has a regularly updated list of rebates for going green by offering rebates & incentives on everything green from free energy saving lightbulbs to money back for monthly transit passes, making it that little bit easier to run a green illustration or design business.

As of this weekend, I’m going to be taking a “holiday” from illustrating & blogging for the next couple months, as my baby’s due on the 20th of February! While I likely won’t be able to respond to comments to my blog while I’m on maternity leave, I’ve put together some fun posts over the next few weeks to keep ya’ll interested ;) Will post a picture or two once the watermelon has been delivered… wish me luck!

The New Yorker has an interesting article on how homes have adopted the “paperless” mentality much faster than businesses have. I know this is true for me at home, which includes my art studio… I use an online phonebook, don’t print out my emails, download my bills as PDFs, do my banking online, create backups for digital files online rather than printing them out…
But the article reports that while homes have adopted a paperless mentality, they are also starting to use more energy with the increasing use of their electronic devices (computers, scanners, printers, digital cameras…) It brings up a good point to consider for the home-based art studio… while you have gone paperless, have you increased your energy use as a result? Are there ways you can reduce your increased energy use? (Such as unplugging electrical equipment when it’s not in use.) I’ve posted some ideas in my Green Tips for Designers & Illustrators… if you have any more ideas let me know!!!

Yipes! My colleague Crystal Driedger did a little digging into Facebook’s terms for uploaded User Content (photos, illustrations, videos, text, etc.) and what she found wasn’t encouraging for creatives who post their work on Facebook! While I love Facebook for keeping in touch with friends & colleagues, I was pretty dissappointed to read in their Terms that they can use any of the content I’ve uploaded for their own purposes (commercial, advertising, derivative works…) without owing me a dime. Check out Crystal’s post on Faceboook & Proprietary Property.

I was listening to Just One More Book podcast today, in which Jane Ray talked about In The Picture, a project aimed to encourage illustrators, authors & publisher to include disabled children in their books for young readers. As written in their 10 Guiding Principals, “The point is not that disabled children should be the prime focus of stories or pictures: simply they should be there, a natural feature of every child’s landscape.” The program encourages the inclusion of disabled children in children’s stories and picturebooks… it is not aiming to create a seperate strain of books for disabled children, but to acknowledge that disabled people are part of our society.

I appreciated Jane discussing how some illustrators feel unsure of how to portray disabled children in their illustrations in a way that does not offend the disabled children themselves. To help encourage illustrators to include disabled children in their works, the In The Picture website has an Image Bank which has a variety of photographic resources illustrators can draw upon. There is also an Inspiration gallery where illustrators have posted their works of disabled children to inspire & encourage other illustrators to do the same… my favourite childhood illustrator, Quentin Blake, contributed 3 works, one of which is shown above.

I’ve found this AOI Report of Illustrator Fees & Standard Pricing 2007 to be a gem of a resource… already have put it to use as a rough starting point when providing quotes for products I’ve never had to illustrate before. It has everything from children’s book rates to advertising pricing. An illustrator’s dream! Well worth reading in full – be sure to read it with an English accent, it’s more fun that way. According to the AOI, the most important considerations when calculating your fee are :

• The Use

• Area of Use or Territory

• Duration

• Client’s Profile

• Reputation of Illustrator

• Expenses

• Client’s Budget

I’ve been catching up on archiving my projects from the past year, and had fun looking over the 157 illustrations I completed in 2007 (clicking on the image above will bring up a bigger picture!)

Was a busy year for me, with illustrating 6 children’s books (Good-bye Baby Max, My Best Worst Sleepover Party Ever, Little Land Adventures, Spotty & Eddie Learn to Compromise, Bookie and the Scoliosis Diagnosis, and The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants); 10 signs/banners for Parks Canada; a brochure for the Library of Parliament of Canada; a chip bag illustration; a couple Threadless t-shirt contest entries (Kantina and Twisted Sister); 4 seashell mosaics; 10 greeting card illustrations; and several personal pieces.

I’ve focused on improving my illustration skills by experimenting with painting in acrylics, and being more attentive to the human form in my children’s books in particular (the fruit of which you’ll see in my current projects…) But most significant for me this year has been expecting our first baby, and discovering all the challenges of illustrating while pregnant :)

Yippee, my official portfolio website, IllustrationCastle.com, has just been updated with new images in the stock & portfolio sections! My brother, Luke MacKay, came up with the original design & interface for me, I think he did a great job!

This year I decided to place an ad in the Directory of Illustration… and the massive 600-page hardcover book arrived just a couple weeks ago! I took a flip through and there is some fabulous work in there… I’m feeling very inspired!

Since this is the first year I’ve listed in the DOI and the book has just launched, I can’t offer much feedback yet on how successful it is as a self-promotional piece for children’s book illustrators… I continue to find personable, old-school guerilla marketing techniques to be the best method of meeting new clients. So listing in a directory is a whole new kettle of fish for me! But thus far I’ve been impressed with the DOI website, which allows you to post your blog feed via RSS, your portfolio, and even feature your current projects.

If you want to take peak, you can Browse the Book here. My little ad wound up on page 362/600!

My awareness & concern for non-toxic art materials has been rekindled… I’ve often noticed the AP labels on my paints and art supplies, but not really bothered to find out what they mean. So here’s a quick 101 on deciphering the safety of your artist materials… (Read on …)