Just got back yesterday from our nearly 7 week trip to Canada to visit family & friends. Was a great holiday, starting with two weeks in Kelowna, followed by a week or so each in Toronto, Michigan, Ottawa, and Algonquin Park. I stumbled across some great art while there (see Miriam Dwyer, Wanda Martin Hicks, and Andrea Ross), took the plunge and bought an Intuos Wacom tablet, and even bought a few bags of the Truly Kettle Chips I did the illustration for. So lots of goodies to share with you all over the next few weeks!

Wowsers, I just got an email from oDesk letting me know my blog made it onto their Top 100 Freelance Blogs list! The list includes the blogs of freelance designers, animators, developers, writers, and heaps more. I took a browse around oDesk, which is a place for freelancers and clients to hook up (and later arrange pay-up.) Looks promising… have you tried it out, oh mysterious blog readers? Let me know if it’s any good eh ;)

Thought I’d share the love, here is a link to the entry form for any illustrators interested in entering to win a free page of advertising in the Directory of Illustration 26.

Wow, this is such an honor… Diane Cantrell’s and my story, Good-bye, Baby Max, won a gold Mom’s Choice Award in the category of Values & Life Lessons. To win this award, Good-bye, Baby Max was evaluated on its “production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal and cost.” And I must say… it was fun sticking the gold seals on my copies of the book!

“The Mom’s Choice Awards® (MCA) is an annual awards program that recognizes authors, inventors, companies, parents and others for their efforts in creating quality family-friendly media, products and services.

An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of our panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of PBS’s Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times best-selling author; Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language; Patricia Rossi, host of NBC’s Manners Minute; Dr. Letitia S. Wright, D.C., host of the Wright PlaceTM TV Show; Catherine Witcher, M.Ed., special needs expert and founder of Precision Education, Inc.; and Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, founder of the Mom’s Choice Awards.” – Mom’s Choice Awards®

Stay tuned for Diane’s and my next children’s book, which we are working on right now!”

Eeeeee, my copies of The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants arrived in the post this week! I’m very pleased with the colours and how they turned out so close to the original illustrations. The book is available online and some of the illustrations from inside can be seen here.

I’ve finally had a chance to listen to this chat on Just One More Book about self-publishing… and it’s just fantastic. (hee hee, I held my breath while listening to it as they mentioned Spotty & Eddie as an example of a self-published book) Andrea and Mark offer some valuable insights into self-published children’s books and discuss some of the traps authors and illustrators can fall into. I especially appreciated hearing their perspective on the importance of editing! It’s one of the hardest things to do to invite someone to give their honest opinion, and an even harder thing to accept their input when it isn’t something you want to hear. I recommend this podcast to any author or illustrator thinking of going the self-publishing route with their children’s book.

Christmas image available Royalty Free at ImageZoo

Just wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a safe & happy New Year! Am missing the snow here in sunny Australia… but we’ll just have to make some sand-angels on the beach instead, as we’re having a bbq on Christmas day with family and friends! I’ll be taking a bit of a blog break over the holidays… but in the mean time here’s a sneak peak (left) at a sketch from the children’s book I’m currently working on, Riley’s Lost Tooth by Diane Cantrell.

Debbie Ohi wrote a kind post about a few of my greeting card tips… her young site is dedicated to everything to do with greeting cards, and already has some great tips, worth keeping an eye on!

It’s that time of year again to start thinking about promotional items! I’m always on the look out for new ideas for promotional items that a) show a sampling of my illustration styles, b) aren’t too expensive, and c) are green, (i.e. reusable by the recipient, have little waste in the printing process, and made with recycled content.)

My favourite reusable promotion idea is a calendar… it’s an excellent way to feature your artwork because it isn’t just filed away in a folder with other artist samples, and it’s seen and used every day for a year by the recipient and their coworkers. (Your art out in plain view = good. Your art in a filing cabinet = bad.)

So this year I put together a 2009 Calendar of my recent children’s book illustrations, featuring illustrations from The Little Boy’s Smile, Tartan Meets the Queen, Good-Bye, Baby Max, Spotty & Eddie Learn to Compromise, Bookie and the Scoliosis Diagnosis, and The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants.

iPhoto Calendars & Print-On Demand : Putting the calendar together couldn’t have been easier, as instead of creating it from scratch and handling the printing myself, I used iPhoto and was done assembling my calendar in about an hour. And conveniently, you can order your calendar through iPhotos print-on-demand service (i.e. only print & pay for the quantity you need.)

The lovely thing about print-on-demand is you only print what you need… whereas if you go with offset printing, you have to print a high-quantity which can bring down the cost per-calendar, but also means you may end up with a lot of unused & wasted promotional materials (not very green). Another benefit of print-on-demand for low quantity printing is you can create multiple promotional calendars tailored to specific target audiences at no extra cost to you.

Green Printing Specs :  I contacted Apple Photo Services directly to find out how environmentally conscious their products are, and was informated that their printed products use environmentally friendly materials. They use McCoy paper stock (by Sappi) which contains 10% post-consumer recycled content, is certified by both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the electricity to produce the paper was generated with 100% renewable energy. They also use nontoxic and recyclable dry inks for printing. You can find more product specs on iPhoto printed products here.

So there you have it, an easy reusable promotional item that’s quick to put together, not too expensive and green! If you’re interested in a copy of my new, (colourful, heavy stock, coil bound 10.5 x 13 inch, 12 month) 2009 Calendar, you can order a signed copy through my Etsy shop.

Eeeee, I’m having a very fun month for exciting packages arriving in the mail… Nina Saab just sent me copies of our book, Bookie & The Scoliosis Diagnosis, yippee! Everbest printing did a great job on the printing, it has a nice feel to it and the colours turned out very close to the original artwork. You can purchase the book here (CDN$21.95), and proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Children’s Hospitals Orthopedic Divisions. Nina also has launched a Scoliosis Diagnosis website with information on scoliosis you can check out here.