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Just thought I'd mention again:

I have a FREE or Pay What You Want .pdf copy of my Snowflakes Colouring Book available here:


They're easy to print out and colour to your heart's content!

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Hello, I'm Heather, aka. Rheall. I'm a cartoonist, writer, and of Mastodon.ART and ComicsCamp.Club.

🍃 Maker of @FriendsOfSam and (on hiatus)
🍃 Owner of :squishygecko: @Squishy and 🐕 @Aila
🍃 One of those weirdos who actually LIKES drawing horses 🐎
🍃 Canadian 🍁, polite and non-confrontational to a fault
🍃 White cis woman, family from Yorkshire, England
🍃 Portfolio:

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To anyone checking me out here following the announcement that I'm taking over as admin of :mastoart: •ART:

This is my personal account, and will always be kept separate from any admin business. If you have concerns or questions about •ART, please address @Curator.

If you're here because you're interested in me personally and want to see what I'm up to, welcome! Just know that things I say here do not automatically equal official admin things. ☺️

Here's to an exciting New Year! :mastodance:

All right, which one of you wrote this

(Let me know so I can shake your hand ✊)

Congratulations to all the Heiltsuk people on building the first Big House to stand tall on the BC coast in 120 years!

I found an injured bird… 

Before I slink off to bed here, have a quick Luci doodle. I guess this could count as ? :da_sweat:

It's funny how I tell myself these things every day: My worth does not equal my productivity, any drawing is better than none, etc. but it was such a relief to hear it come from him, and have no obligation or expectation of showing him the outcome or try to explain why it was hard or why it didn't work out.

Just acceptance and encouragement, without the need for a productive result. It felt so nice. ☺️

Dennis sees my sketchbook lying on the coffee table and says, "Oh! Were you doing some drawing?"

I cringe– I immediately feel a shock of shame and guilt. My initial reflex was to say "no" so I didn't have to explain how I failed, or show him the measly ten-second scribble I managed to get out. Pitiful.

"Yeah…" I say, reluctantly "But nothing came of it."

"That's okay," he says, and I feel a curious sense of relief? "The point is you tried. A bad drawing is better than no drawing."

Wow. 😭 💗

9) Honestly? I don't usually do any drawing every day anymore. I might sketch something once a week or two nowadays. When I was younger I used to spend hours a day drawing, basically any time I was home and not online or playing video games. I used to fill up an 80-page sketchbook each month when I was in High School!

These things naturally come in waves for a lot of people, and I might start drawing more again in the future… we'll see! A lot of things are in flux for me right now. :da_sweat:

8) I have done. This is actually a difficult topic for me, since I wanted so much to be able to make a living off of my art, but when it came down to it I couldn't handle the responsibility and it really killed my creative drive. I've done commission work, storyboard work, concept art work, comic work… but yeah, I needed a break.

Now I just draw for me, whenever I can. :)

6) Well, mechanical things are a big "uuugggh" for me, but so are rocks. Goddang rocks.

7) Not as much as I should, really! But if it's an important artwork and not just me scribbling around, I'll definitely use reference. Reference is your friend!

5) Oh gosh, this changes all the time, but a few things that have always stuck with me: horses and thin, spindly-limbed animals (mainly canines and dragons).

You can see some old examples of those here:

I really like drawing animals, especially animals where you can really *see* the anatomy under the skin. So much fun to draw!!

Requested by @sikkdays :da_boogie:

29) Traditional art is a tricky thing, and definitely benefits from as much preparation as you can possibly do. With my big watercolour pieces (Ex. I would always do preparatory sketches in a sketchbook, then properly soak/stretch my paper in preparation. Then I would make a light sketch, then start painting.

Sometimes I'll make a digital colour comp and use that as reference for the traditional piece. It's a lot easier that way!

4) I have all three! I don't use my DA account anymore, but you can see it (and some of my old artwork) here:

I have a personal portfolio website and blog set up here:

3) I took art and ceramic classes in high school (in addition to band), but always balked at the idea of doing art in college. After a few years of general studies I finally decided to give art school ago, and did a two year fine arts diploma and finally my Bachelors.

I will say, though: Art school did *not* "teach me how to draw". It taught me a lot of very useful things (mainly how to think/conceptualize about art), but you still need to put the work in outside of it. 💪

2) Like many, I was always a really crafty/creative kid, and I was one of those kids in elementary school who would share illustrations with each other and draw my own Garfield comic knock-offs. But I didn't start taking it seriously until age 13 or so, when I discovered the internet, was inspired by D&D 3ed, joined Elfwood, and started making my own cyberpets in the online custom cyberpet markets of the early aughts. I learned *SO MUCH* in those years!

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