August 29, 2012

Pickle Weasel APP Survey & CONTEST!

Onward!

Right, so, yesterday I announced the super-fantasmic Pickle Weasel app coming this fall. Today I need data. Like information. To help us make the app as good as can be. So I'm hoping to tempt you into filling out this epic survey thingie.

But I don't expect something for nothing. Oh no - I designed the questions especially for discerning Pickle Weasel types, heheh... Plus, if you fill it out, you'll be entered into a draw for these two mugs. Two winners, two mugs each. It's a set.



UPDATE: The contest is now closed. The survey is still open though! If you get an error message, please fill it out HERE! You should still leave a heads-up in the comments below. 

Shall we begin? Greatness! Your input will help me make the app better for you. Contest closes this Saturday night. I'll announce the winner here on Monday night.



Lemmeeno if you entered by leaving me a Hi-5 in the comments. Pickle Weasel loves you. And so do I.

Props to The HUZ for putting this boss survey thingie in here. It looks just like my blog.

August 28, 2012

Pickle Weasel goes MOBILE.

You’ve heard the rumours, right? It’s true. Pickle Weasel is getting his her ...its own app!

How did this happen? Some cartoon characters are like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny; if enough people believe in them, they become real. Pickle Weasel hijacked so many of my blog posts and DrawSomeThings he’s ready to take the leap.


I can't give it all away but here’s what I can tell you:
  • There will be hundreds (yes many HUNDREDS) of funny/silly/saucy Pickle Weasel Toons updated regularly.
  • I’m always encouraging people to draw, so there will be Draw-games! 
  • And…it will be social! With sharing and other features. 



The Pickle Weasel app will be ready soon. Like this fall 2012. Holy FUQ that's in a few weeks. I know right? Craziness. We’re looking for fun bloggers to review the app in the run up to the launch so if you’re interested in that please leave your name below.

I'm too excited. I may wear a hole in my chair from squirming.

Click HERE for an epic contest survey thingie with cool Pickle Weasel prizes!


August 27, 2012

SCREAM.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiiiiGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!"

That blood curdling scream was mine.

To celebrate the last gasp of summer me and my friend Robin like to take our 12 year old boys to Laronde, our local thrill ride park. I love roller coasters and it feels kinda good to have my vertebrae re-aligned. This year we dragged our somewhat reluctant husbands along for the day.

The Huz had never been on modern thrill rides (he's from the olde country, or at least that's what he claims). I told him not to be afraid, but definitely to scream. The reason that you hafta scream on the roller coaster is mostly to keep your lunch down. It tightens up the abdominals and locks the contents in place.

And scream we did! After five rides I felt like Steven Tyler with strep throat; I was all screamed out. The next ride we lined up for was The Vampire - aptly named since it will suck the life right out of you. My voice was gone...but the ride is only like 40 seconds long. How bad could it be? I decided to try not screaming.

It turned out to be the longest 40 seconds of my life. When it finally finished...













...I could not keep it together; I could barely walk and I'm pretty sure my brain was no longer attached to the inside of my skull.

I spent the rest of the day making up fake ride names to console myself:
  1. The Stupefier
  2. The ZOMBIE (<<< The Huz made this one up)
  3. The Lobotomizer
  4. The Face Flattener
  5. The Grey AntiMatter-er
  6. The Slack-Jaw DROP
  7. The Permanent Wave
  8. The Seat Soaker
  9. The Take Me Away Calgoner
  10. The Oh-Em-GEE Force
  11. The Mop
  12. The Ferris Bueller Wheel
  13. The Stretcher
  14. The Ride That Shall Not Be Named
  15. The Dematerializer
  16. The Particle Accelerator
  17. The Defibrillator
    and my personal fave, submitted by The Huz,
  18. The Munch.


Don't forget to scream! And please do add to the list.


August 24, 2012

Hotel Roomate Beauty TIPS.

True story: featuring a quasi-magical product for which I am not sponsored in any way. 

BlogHer 12 Conference, NYC. I was supposed to bunk with my friend Anissa, but the Hilton had other ideas. Faiqa and Megan were kind enough to let me camp out in their room. The first morning, as the sun streamed into the room...








The Awesome Power of Karaoke combined with handy beauty tips. My roomates were rock stars.

I'm the Opening Keynote for the Aiming Low NonCon in October - come and see me there!


August 20, 2012

Call Me Maybe.

Yes, I'm goofing off when I should be working. But I couldn't resist drawing this take on the "Call Me Maybe" meme.



Inspired by my Twitter friend @MamaMommyMom from MamaMommyMom.com. Thanks Jamie!


August 14, 2012

YOU. Austin the FootBALL

I first drew Angela (@mommyamc) in this animated cartoon I did (she won a contest). Then I drew her adorable little boy Aaron as a LumberJACK, which she subsequently had turned into a rockin' little tattoo. It was only a matter of time before I had to draw her other son Austin.

Per his request, as a football...!



Although I'm piled up with work I couldn't resist. That's how it is with inspiration.


FaceBook whuuuut...?

I opened my FaceBook and saw this face in the ad for Canada Government Pardons. Will someone please tell Charlie Sheen that the Canadian Government might forgive him!!



Or maybe Charlie Sheen really is a Canadian? I don't know. But FaceBook finally got me to look at the ad section. Winning at jokes!



August 10, 2012

Martha Stewart is TOON swag.

Lifestyle rockstar Martha Stewart was interviewed by BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort Page.



Ballsome! Hands up if you saw this too.

UPDATE: August 12, 2012
I found out today that this brilliant question came from @fourthbreakfast via Twitter. And here's her blog post about it at FourthBreakfast.com!

Katie Couric TOON swag here.


August 9, 2012

SKILLZ...

This is from @MaryMac's BlogHer recap at PajamasandCoffee.com (thanks for letting me screen cap this!!) I live-drew them from about 20 feet away in about 20 minutes. It's very cool for me to see the photo after the fact, noting the hand gestures and expressions from drawing to photo.



TOON swag is the best swag. It's fun, it lasts forever and it fits in your luggage. I can't wait to do it again.


August 8, 2012

#BlogHer12 TOON swag - part 5

Continued from Draw Someone In - TOON swag.

After hanging out with Rachel Nabors it was back to the Grand Ballroom where I bumped into @ReneeMMartinez, whom I've met before at the 140conf in Montreal. She gave me 3 body builder poses to draw, making it really hard to choose. Also dimples!!

ReneeMartinez.com

One of my most successful drawings from the whole entire Blogher event is this impression of Vikki Reich AKA @uppoppedafox. I drew it at the Come As You Are (#CAYA) party co-hosted by Aiming Low - hands down THE best party I went to at BlogHer. I found myself really studying Vikki's face...she was so unassuming and open in her demeanor. She seemed to draw a quiet confidence from her own vulnerabilities. Does that make sense?

At one point to get her to laugh I did a big fake laugh and she copied me and then we got the giggles for real.

UpPoppedaFox.com

Vikki was one of the treasure's of BlogHer's Voices Of The Year in the category of Identity for her post "Ministrations". It was pleasure to hear her read, each phrase framed with a cinematic quality; it was like watching a film.

You know those people on Twitter and Facebook and blogs that you really share with and feel like you know them? I have that with @DragonDream.


Kristin Cruz - Dragon Dreamers Lair


The thing is that although we'd planned to meet at BlogHer, we didn't even recognize each other until I was halfway through my drawing of Cecily Kellog. And then all hell broke loose. Kristin also posed for me at he #CAYA party.

All through BlogHer you could see groups of women sitting around on the floors of the Hilton hotel. There just weren't any comfy sofa-places set up in areas of movement where you might run into someone you know. So there we were, a bunch of us plonked down in the hallway between parties. I met a woman named @KirstenPiccini who told me she blogged about shoes and cupcakes. Which meant I had to draw a totally boss high-heel CupCake stiletto. Uh-huh.



The very cool thing about this drawing is that all the women on the floor had input on the colours. I would so wear these shoes. I have seen cupcakes in the shape of shoes, but I've not yet found shoes in the shape of cupcakes. Christian Louboutin pulllleeeeeze make them for us.

We ended up at the Cheeseburger party. There was more wine...I admit to being slightly tipsy at this point. I bumped into @LisaMcKenzie (like me, reppin' Montreal) who asked me to draw her. I told her I was just too wined up to be trusted. Lisa didn't mind. And Drunk Drawing was born.

Lisa McKenzie

I could barely see her in the dark so I just went with my Chardonnay fueled instincts on this. The next day I saw her Twitter avatar, and I was struck by how much it looks like the drawing. Skillz, right?

I went back to my hotel room. Brushed my teeth. Fell asleep. There were more Karaoke induced RockStar galivantings during the night, as my roomates came and went...but by the time I left to explore Central Park the next day, Megan had checked out and Faiqa got to finally sleep...

Native-born.com


...for a whole hour.

Thank-you Internet Media Labs, and SeeS.aw for sponsoring me at BlogHer12. I really can't wait to TOON swag again!


I drew this toon swag on my iPad with my Wacom Bamboo stylus, using Adobe Ideas.


August 7, 2012

Draw Someone In - TOON swag - part 4.

Continued from Katie Couric is TOON swag.

The two beds were not quite big enough for three people. I had one bed, and my roomies Megan and Faiqa shared the other - pretty sure they didn't sleep much the first night. Well they totally solved the problem on the second night by simply NOT SLEEPING. How?



After turning down their kind offer to accompany them at 1:30 AM, I watched them sally forth to sing songs from Glee uh...I mean Journey, in the city that never sleeps, and I nodded off. I think I was having another dream about Channing Tatum bananas when these two bloggers burst back into the hotel room at 6 AM, loudly crowing and proclaiming themselves to be Rock Stars. I couldn't argue. I couldn't even draw it. I was that impressed.

Up jumped JC to stuff my face with bagels and cream cheese; this is an aside, but it's worth reporting that BlogHer offered a vegan selection of food, which is thoughtful, no?

Fortified with carbs and coffee I charged off to another panel session. This was called "Telling Stories with Pictures" and hosted by @CrowChick with co-panelists @cakespy and @booksnchickens. These three women offer blog-fare that is personalized with their own unique illustrations: scroll downy downy for the links. Their panel at BlogHer offered guidance on why and how one can and should do the same.



One of my philosophies in life is that one should draw, whether one believes they have ability or not. "Drawing is good for your brain," I always say...tweet...etc. Expression through drawing is inherent in both my Kids Stories DVD's and my TV series, and it's a focus in ye olde animated blog and my speaker-ing. The panel session was pretty full so it was super cool to see that other bloggers wish to use images to help tell their stories. Alas, it ended too soon. This subject could use it's own conference too!

One of the best things that came out of this session was that I got to hang out with the elegant, intelligent, talented and hilarious Rachel Nabors (@CrowChick) afterwards. We even discovered that we have a mutual friend: an intersection between the interwebs and real-life.

Oh wow, I just went on and on there. Whelp, I'll stop now and post the rest of the toon swag HERE!

Oh ya, here's those links:
Jessie Moore Oleson -  cakespy.com
Rachel Nabors - RachelNabors.com
Shalini - Reading and Chickens

I drew this toon swag on my iPad with my Wacom Bamboo stylus, using Adobe Ideas.


August 6, 2012

Katie Couric is TOON swag - part 3.

Continued from Part 2.

Katie Couric gets her own post in my BlogHer recaps.

When I think of Katie Couric, I think of intelligence and warmth, humour, curiosity, honesty and critical thinking...perhaps it's because I have teenage daughters, but the words "role" and "model" gravitate towards each other when I hear her name. Interviewed by BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton NY, in front of 5000 breathless women, she did not disappoint. Katie Couric was undeniably animated.



She was talking about how the internet has unleashed good things and bad things, citing the "anonymous vitriole" on Twitter and saying "I spend a lot of time blocking them." And then she turned to one side and made stabbing gestures at an invisible smartphone, and actually said this:



And I fell in love.

The Katie Show premieres September 10th, 2012. I may just have to get cable for this.

More toon swag HERE!

I drew this toon swag on my iPad with my Wacom Bamboo stylus, using Adobe Ideas.


August 5, 2012

#BlogHer12 TOON swag - part 2

Continued from Part 1.

Besides the masochistic desire to not sleep at all for three days, one of the reasons we attend conferences like BlogHer is to learn. I was curious as to how other women deal with blogging about their children, so I dropped in on @redneckmommy, @Ooph and @marymac's panel session called "Mom! Stop blogging about me!".

Tanis Miller Attack of the Redneck Mommy - Stephanie Mullen Ooph.com - Mary McCarthy  pajamasandcoffee.com
Parenting is a sensitive and deeply personal subject and so is blogging about your children; different women have different philosophies. For me personally, it's about respect, same as anyone (except when lampooning a public figure, in which case you're on your own). Anyhow, I thought the panel was much too short, as we'd only skimmed the surface before it was over. This topic deserves it's own conference.*

*Wanna see how closely the drawing resembles the real deal? Check it.

Time for lunch! While stuffing my face the ebullient @missversatile showed up and posed for me.

NoniShanay Cavaliere
And then there was @MarthaStewart... while I'm not exactly a Martha fangirl, I do admire her strength and well, balls. For example, when BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort Page asked her during the interview, if there was anything she wasn't good at, Martha replied, "something I haven't tried yet". Haw haw!

MarthaStewart.com
This is what she looked like on stage (to me). Happy Birthday Martha!

One of my fave bloggers is @LadyEstrogen. She's funny, she's smart and she 's very provocative. We sat down and had a drink together and she showed me the present she got from Trojan. Yes, people, apparently they were giving these vibes away at the booth and Lady E scored one. At least I think it was one; she may have had others hidden from my view. Tee hee.

LadyE.me
The Voices of the Year event was amazing. I was impressed by the caliber of writing and performance. It was world class. And I was humbled to be included in presentation of Honorees in the Visual category. Needless to say I was so busy, laughing/crying/feeling that I didn't actually draw anything. Sorry.

However, at the Open Mic session right after the VOTY reception, I was pleasantly surprised to see the oh-so-dry reading by the elegant @PHDinParenting. She had me in giggles. So I drew her.

PhD in Parenting
There was apparently a double Unicorn cake that caused a fuss at last year's BlogHer Sparklecorn party. Ever curious, I went down to check out this year's Unicorn cake, which looked pretty nice; but nothing really magical happened until I started to draw it. Lo and behold! Pickle Weasel materialized and took that silver ponycorn for a ride.


By this time, the music was starting to make me a little nauseous, with its unrelenting thrum-thrum-thrum. It dawned on me that I was completely exhausted. On my way to the elevators I passed a group of women sprawled on the Hilton hallway floor, mid-powow. Reclining with her friends was @cecilyK who I've admired for the past year for the strength of her personality. She appeals to me as a woman who endeavours to live life on her own terms.

As I walked past I really hoped to catch her eye, but she didn't look up. I kicked myself for my shyness, turned back and just asked if she'd let me draw her. She said yes!

Uppercase Woman
And so my day was complete...or so I thought. I went to my room and fell into a deeeeep slumber. For about half an hour. Whereupon my roomates @Faiqa and @msmegan came bouncing in, jumped on my bed and tried to get me to go out to Karaoke with them. But that's another story.

Wanna see my toon swag of Katie Couric?