And fun was had by all...

Have been having a fab time with friends in Montreal and family in Boston. Lots of good food, good drink, staying out late (one night with no sleep at all -- my 3 and 5-year-old nieces couldn't quite understand why Auntie-K needed nap time too) and genereal fun and mayhem.

In illustration news, in Montreal I got to meet wonderful illustrators Susan Mitchell (aka Sweet Pea), Paula J Becker, and Suana Verelst. It was great to have a face-to-face with these inspiring ladies, and to see Susan's work space. I was the lucky recipient of one of her lovely felted softy bunnies, and some of her illustrated Xmas cards which I will show you at some point.

I was also put to work in my time in Montreal and did a mural in my friend's soon-to-be baby's room. some photies:

And yesterday we went to the Eric Carle museum which was as much fun for little ones as it was for me! It was great to see some of Carle's original collage work, along with his amazing linoprint work I had fogotten he did.

They had spotlights on artists Leo Lionni and Lisbeth Zwerger - always great to learn about new (to me) illustrators. Zwerger's work was incredibly detailed - some pieces were so small!! one was about 3in x 3in. and she uses some amazing perspective in her work too.

While I was checking out the exhibition the littlies were having fun in the art studio making their own collages or in the library reading from the amazing book collection. fun had by all :-)

Staying in Boston until Thursday when I'll head to LA for the conference.. excited!

And I'm off...

(this is what my cat was doing tonight to my packed suitcase)

A doodle in my lil book of ideas:

It's about 8cm x 8cm and will be coming with me everywhere on my trip. cute eh?

So... I'm leaving on a jet plane.....

first to the homeland

then to see the little ones

then to the conference

then to see more family

before returning home.

I have no idea if I'll have the chance to blog. If I do, I will. But if not, forgive me, and wish me luck! :-)

Check em out

I'm checking up on some of the speakers who will be at the SCBWI conference. I got into illustration after I left North America, so even though I'm pretty au fait with who's who in australian illustration, I don't know some of the most common names in the US. So I'm doing my research. lookie at these heavyweights:

Loren Long

(he's got a great website)

EB Lewis

(can't you just feel that rain?)

Priscilla Burris - website & blog

(who, incidentally, bought my ripple painting, and who I'm looking forward to meeting at the conference. She also did all of the illustrations for this year's conference materials -- sweet!)

John Parra

(some lovely mexican influences here)

Phew! I think I need a nice cup of tea and a good lie down now...

Pick me! Pick me!

One of the amazing things about going to an industry conference is that you just.. never.. know.. who.. will.. be.. there.....

In my case, it could be the publisher of my dreams, the agent of my dreams, or someone else of my dreams (except for husband, I already have that!)

And the only way they are going to find you is if you stand out from the crowd in some way. I guess, truthfully, your art should make you do that. But promotion is a such an important thing, though sometimes irreconcilable with being an introverted artist.

But I do my best to talk the talk, and um.. paint the paint? So here is my promotional postcard for the SCBWI conference in all its glory!

My folio is also being printed and bound this week, and I have a few other little tricksies up my sleeve... heh heh....

t minus 4 days to lift off!

Ahoy! Painting animation

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while:

this is a little animation of the stages of the watercolour painting of 'playing pirates' that I started some weeks ago.

the colour difference at the end is because most images were taken with a camera except for the last which was professionally scanned. (painting was too big to fit in my scanner)

I used the animation capabilities in Photoshop for this. It was pretty easy, but I had to take the smooth fades out because it was making the file size too big. What do other people use to make videos/slideshows for the web?

(i hope it works!)

ripple cards

I bought a few cards from Kelly Light's Ripple project and they have arrived!

this fun one from the talented Karen Erasmus who happens to live just around the corner (in global terms)

and this beautiful card by Emily Cole (no link)

Kelly has raised $7,400 so far to benefit animal victims of the Gulf oil spill. Way to go Kelly! that's a helluvalotta $10 cards!

I-F: Giant

Imagine going on a surreal flight with a giant turtle?

I wanted to do something unusual and a bit whimsical this time -- this will be the last piece that makes it into my folio for the SCBWI conference in LA. I leave in TWO WEEKS !! wohoo!

and... I've finally discovered a few other people who are heading there too, (thank goodness!) through Chris Cheng at SCBWI Australia. So hello to fellow aussies Samantha Hughes, Caz Williams and Angela Driver! (Angela's website will be live July 10th) Looking forward to meeting all of you in person!

Happy Canada Day!

Just wanted to wish a Happy Canada Day to all those back in the homeland... :-)