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.”

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” – Pablo Picasso

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!

Came across the Design Police website (though How Design Blog) and got a kick out of their Visual Enforcement Kit. Really it’s the perfect office accessory for any designer… download the kit for free and print a set of stickers to help “bring bad design to justice.”

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” – Claude Monet

I actually had time last night to just doodle a little fan art in front of the tv (being nine months pregnant has its perks!) Thought I’d share with the world that I just love Michael Cera… fell in love with him when he played awkward teenager George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development (best… show… ever…) and have enjoyed following his acting career since. From the web series Clark & Michael to the lovable flick Juno, the Canadian actor brings an adorable man-child sincerity to his characters.

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.

“To me, it’s not work. When I draw and I write, I find it relaxing. It’s not like 9-to-5, where a man goes to a job and he isn’t really interested in the job. Luckily, I get paid for doing what I’d do for nothing.” – Bob Kane, Creator of Batman