"Blue Oliver" cover - WIP

I received this commission a couple of days ago, from a lovely lady up in the North Island by the name of "Angela Smith". Of course, the moment I realised we had the same name, I felt a kinship with her - all the more when I discovered that her main character (the boy, not the owl) is called Oliver.

Perhaps it was a sign?

Anyhow, because the deadline was pretty short (before the end of the month) and I had almost finished part one of Locke's piece and am still lacking motivation/inspiration about part two, I got started on it quick-smart.

Here's the lineart. The words are added in for demonstrative purposes, and are not actually part of the image (yet) if they are required, I shall add them in once the piece is coloured, and I'll probably put the tree behind the words and the owl in front, not them both in front - as it blocks too much of the E and R.

I hope she likes it! I'm always a bit nervous when money is involved.

Why so quiet?

I've been quiet for the last week or so for two exciting reasons - one, is that a store in Otago purchased a large order of my art and I was involved in assembling a number of art cards and greeting cards and two, I was doing the final touches on my second novel, "A Midsummer Knight's Quest" (which was actually written first).

"A Midsummer Knight's Quest" is now available for Kindle on Amazon, and shall soon be available in paperback format (once I receive and approve my proofs) and also on kobo and hopefully (*finger's crossed*) the Whitcoulls website.

And just so you know - translating books into ebooks is a complicated process!

To convert to mobi (for kindle):
I have to first transform the odf (OpenOffice) into html, before doing that I changed all the fonts into Times New Roman and removed all the illustrations except the title page, map and advertisement at the end (this is because interior images make a mess of the layout and although I kept them in for Aroha's Grand Adventure, this one has a lot more in it).

Then, I convert it using kindlegen, and skim through the generated mobi file, locating any errors (and there were many, I do not understand why - changing fonts, losing the bold of headings etc) and fixing them via jedit.

Once I feel I have fixed them all (and multiple times before) I save and regenerated the mobi file until finally, voila - it looks decent!

To transform into epub:
This can be done from the mobi file or the pdf. When I tried to use mobicreator with the pdf it messed up the formatting.

I use Calibre to create the file.
I then use Sigil to edit the epub - fixing the formatting errors and setting the sections appropriately (for some reason it divided my copyright page up line-by-line).

As I have made some changes, I need to redo the epub file, but it will be a while before it's uploaded. I also need to "order" another ISBN for it.

Tell me a story!

I joined this swap because I enjoyed the theme, then puzzled for ages on what I was going to illustrate. Final conclusion - somce of our beloved New Zealand picture books - in my style.

So here goes:

Little Kiwi Draws a Dinosaur
("Little Kiwi and the Dinosaur" by Bob Darroch)



My Cat likes to hide in boxes
(Lynley Dodd)



Lion in the Meadow
(Margaret Mahy)



Stalking the Cupcake
("Stickybeak" by Angela Oliver)


(okay, so not a beloved classic - but we can all dream, right?)

A-Through-L - the Wyverary

September meets the Wyverary in "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland..." by Catherynne M. Valente, a woman of extraordinary imagination. Read it! It's incomplete, but highly imaginative. Her published works are mostly brilliant too.

The sugarplum Tree

Based on the popular poem by Eugene Field.

This is a 3 card ATC set (scanned before getting the chop). For Faithwalker who sent a lovely ATC gift to my mother before being checked into hospital with kidney failure. So, I hope this cheers her up a bit!

A taste of kiwi with some literature thrown in

An elegant Kotuku contemplates her next meal. She's about to wing her way to Argentina.

Bod and Miss Lupescu, from Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book".

A traditional Maori talisman. The meaning behind these little carved deities is much debated. "Tiki" refers to a male demigod in Polynesia, and it may have links with fertility or birth deformities (protecting against). They are often carved from is pounamu - greenstone.

Children's Literature

I am running another reading group at present and every single book nominated was a children's classic. As I have just completed my final illustration, I thought it time I shared them here:


Max frolics with a Wild Thing in "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak
Mr Tumnus parades towards you, umbrella, parcels and tail in hand. He's stepped straight from the pages of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis.


The last free unicorn screams as the Red Bull comes charging towards her in "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S Beagle.


A Cloud man has failed to hail on the peaches parade, as it skips under the rainbow and away, in "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl.
And Arriety writes in her diary from "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton.

My nominated title was "Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH". I should re-read and illustrate it myself, actually. Jolly good book!

Random Assortment

You may know the Fable - the Fox sees a juicy bunch of grapes and tries to reach them - but oh, gosh darn it, he's not tall enough, even when he stands on his hindpaws and stretches up as high as he can go. Still out of reach. Again he tries, and again, but without success. Finally he gives up. "Probably sour anyway," he mutters to himself as he pads off. This coining the phrase "sour grapes".

Well, he obviously wasn't a Grey Fox. These American foxes can actually climb trees. They have hooked claws, which allow them to scramble up and escape predators.

Or in this case, get the grapes.


How now, Randall cow? Err, calf. This wee black and white lass is one of the many "Thank you" ATCs I shall be sending out over the next few weeks. She's going to live with Ibus in Scotland.

And this is another, it's off to Montana for Xstitcher's ATC garden. It's a Echinopsis subdenudata and it's referenced from here


Whereas my Crowley portrait worked well, this portrait of Greebo in his human form (still showing certain feline characteristics) was rather less successful. Oh well.

Cute and Quirky...

I made my first ATC ever on August 3rd, 2005.

This year, to celebrate 4 years of ATCs I will be releasing my book "Cute and Quirky: The art of LemurKat" by Angela Kestrel. It will feature a selection of some of the 2086 ATCs I have created since then.

You do the maths - I have been making - on average 1.5 ATCs per day.

How's that for prolific?

Anyhow, some of the featured pieces will be familiar to you, others will not.

Here's a sneak preview of the cover as I've currently designed it (may change of course):

And for todays art, here is a Nene: