If only I’d known it was this simple :) I came across the above here.

Thought I’d share a palette I created using myPANTONE, inspired by one of my children’s books, “Spotty & Eddie Learn to Compromise” by Lisa Chalifoux.

Here’s a palette I created using myPANTONE, inspired by one of my children’s books, “The Little Boy’s Smile” by Tom Krause.

I’ve been testing out the myPANTONE online account coupled with their colour picker software, as I wanted to start saving palettes from my illustrations for future use.

The myPANTONE online account is kind of fun, in the sense that you’re part of a colour loving community with a lot of colour inspiration available to you. The best part is sharing & collecting colour palettes… I’ve created an account and am sharing palettes from my children’s book illustrations.

When you click on any individual palette, you can see the palette in more detail… rolling over the swatches brings up their Pantone and RGB values. You can also upload an image that inspired the palette, as well as tag your palettes with keywords that describe it, so it’s easier for others to find. The futuristic sound effects every time you load the page is kind of irritating though.

The myPANTONE colour picker software is pretty easy to use… you can either create palettes from a colour wheel, or select an image and choose from it 12 swatches of colours to create your palette. The tabbed navigation is not user-friendly, as there is no text, just an obscure square patch of colour… you have to wait for the mouse-over text to pop up to see what the tab is for.

My main beef with it is that you can’t select more than 12 swatches of colour… and I use about 20+ colours to colour an entire children’s book digitally, so it isn’t quite the best all around colour picker for me. For my personal use, I may have to stick to creating my swatches in Photoshop and saving the palettes after each project… and just use the myPANTONE account & software for sharing & finding inspiration for colour.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert

Here’s my submission for this week’s theme of “Garden” at IllustrationFriday.com. (You can click on the image to see it at a larger size) This illustration is also available as a print on Etsy.com.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

Thought I’d share a photo of my little bundle of joy with you all… our daughter, Hera Castles, was born safe & sound on Feb 18th! Both Hera & I are doing well, and loving being at home with Daddy and Grandma & Grandpa. Such an incredible feeling being a mother now, I am loving getting to know our little girl and have just fallen in love with her. SO… back to maternity leave for me, baby & I need our rest.

“Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children - as long as you make them laugh as well” – Roald Dahl

Thanks, James, for making my day and sending me the link to this hilarious blogpost on Google Blogoscoped, Color Pencils Reviewed. It reads like a computer programmer’s review of a new software or electronic equipment… and the issues they’ve taken with the “color pencil devices,” such as “shrinking device size” and “sparse documentation” are a hoot! Here’s a little sample from the article… :

“Comparing the output from different devices. To the left is the original Garfield. In the middle, the disappointingly crude output of the color pencils. To the right side is something a Google search brought up in seconds; while in lower resolution, the colors and expression are a much closer fit.”