At long last, I’m happy to announce that my new art licensing website is up and running! It’s taken several weeks of focused work, but hopefully worth it. Over the past few months, I’ve received enough licensing inquiries that it made sense to create a separate site for art buyers to more easily view my art.

(You might be wondering, What sort of art buyers? And what sort of licensing inquiries? My art buyers range from art directors, editors and even individuals — in other words, anyone and everyone. For example, an engaged couple licensed my Tristan and Isolde watercolor for a wedding invitation. Along with wedding invitations, my art has been licensed for book covers, magazines, websites, dvds, calendars — well, you get the idea!)

Right now, I have over 600 images available for licensing. They range from goddesses to queens; from decorative details to borders; and even children’s book and fantasy illustrations from early in my career. All images are digitized and color corrected for print or electronic reproduction. I’ve also included a clear usage policy explaining how to license my art, making it accessible for anyone to use.

That written, my licensing website is an evolving project. With twenty years as a professional illustrator, it will take more than a few weeks to uncover and scan all of my art. Plus, there’s still a few last details to take care of on the site, such as adding some keywords and art descriptions. But after two weeks of tagging and keywording art, it’s time to move on. For now. When it comes to finishing enormous projects such as this, I always think of the myth of Cupid and Psyche; specifically when Psyche is stuck separating all of the seeds in order to prove her worthiness.

How about you? How do you deal with finishing a huge project—especially when it involves a gazillion mindless details that feel impossible to track? What’s the best way to keep boredom at bay? I hope you’ll comment below with any advice you might have. As much as I desire to meet my goal, I find it very easy to get sidetracked when the slog gets repetitive.

So you can imagine how pleased I am that my art on the web site is up and running, loose ends and all. I hope you’ll take a moment to visit!

Doomed Queens now has a dedicated fan page over on Facebook – sort of a way station on the information highway for all things royal and wrecked. I’ll be posting events and links there regularly, along with on the Doomed Queens site.

If you’re a Facebook member and liked Doomed Queens, I hope you’ll take a moment to “fan” it. It really does help get the word out about the book, as do Amazon and BN.com reviews.

Oh, and quick reminder: My guest post at Wonders and Marvels is scheduled to go live today. And there’s still time to enter their Doomed Queens book giveaway (if you haven’t already). If you have any questions about anything in my Wonders and Marvels guest post, feel free to post them in the comments below here. I’ll do my best to answer them all, even if it takes my consulting a neuropsychologist.

Yesterday was the official Doomed Queens launch and publication date! I have a post incubating about it, but in the meantime, check out Diane’s post. Diane modeled for my Catherine of Aragon drawing, and was one of the “queens” in attendance at the launch party.

The next phase of the Doomed Queens site at DoomedQueens.com is underway. That written, much of the content is still in development or not operating correctly. For example, I still need to import the navigation bar, upload the book excerpt — fun stuff.

Nonetheless, if you want to take a peek, click here. I think the design is definitely moving in the right direction!

The Doomed Queens website is semi-live. By semi-live, I mean that though the whole site isn’t up yet, I’ve posted a temporary home page. Eventually the content on DoomedQueens.com will expand to include a quiz to accertain your risk of marching to the scaffold, a Youtube video (produced by Random House, natch), and a host of other darkly fun yet oddly empowering content.

For now, the home page will grant you a royal taste of what’s to come. It also features a Doomed Queens cautionary moral of the day (which are sprinkled throughout the book). My personal favorite is for Princess Diana: “Beware of men bearing Camillas and cameras.” Useful advice indeed!