These are the official photos of me accepting my medal and a framed illustration award from the Reader's Favorite Book Awards, for my book Watercolour Toolbox: Essentials for Painting Success.

I was one of about 250 authors honoured at the ceremony, which was held in the nightclub of the Regency Hotel Miami last November, during the week-long Miami Book Fair International festivities.

Among the award winners were two authors from Canada, some from Australia, Denmark, England and other foreign countries, with the majority from the US. Everyone was dressed in suits and party dresses, just like the Academy Awards in miniature! My husband and I had a grand time that evening, chatting with authors and their spouses, all with interesting life stories to tell (go figure!).

We also spent a morning walking through the street fair portion of the Book Fair. There were hundreds of booths showcasing authors, publishers, publicists, printers, and other facets of the international book industry. Many venues hosted seminars and presentations by writers.

The first picture above shows me with my book in front of the Reader's Favorite booth, and the second gives a view of part of the Book Fair, which took up about six city blocks in downtown Miami. I tell you, the book industry is a whole other world out there...

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I have some exciting news to share.

Readers' Favorite Book Awards announced recently that my art instruction book, Watercolour Toolbox: Essentials for Painting Success, has won an Illustration Award, as well as a Bronze Medal in the 'Non-Fiction Home/Crafts' category of their 2014 book competition. The awards will be presented at the annual Miami Book Fair International in November.

Earlier this year, my book was a Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a Bronze Medal winner in the How-To category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards, both held in New York City.

When I wrote Watercolour Toolbox, I focused all of my talent and energy into offering simple solutions that would help artists overcome universal artistic challenges. I illustrated the manuscript with photos of 40 of my watercolour paintings, and chose FriesenPress as my publisher because they could make my book available virtually anywhere books are sold. I wanted to share my painting techniques and strategies with as many people as possible.

It feels great to have my efforts recognized internationally, as each of these competitions attracted thousands of entries worldwide.

For more details about where to purchase my book, visit http://karenrichardson.ca/pages/where-to-buy.

I'm delighted to let you know, my painting instruction book Watercolour Toolbox won a bronze medal in the 'How-To' category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards in New York City this spring.

This international competition attracted over 5,500 entries, from all 50 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces and 32 other countries.

Watercolour Toolbox also was a Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards that were announced in May, and was awarded a Five Star Review from the Reader's Favorite Book Awards earlier this spring.

It's lovely to have my book recognized by industry experts, but it is the appreciation my readers and painting students express that really warms my heart.

Where to buy Watercolour Toolbox

This week I entered my painting instruction book 'Watercolour Toolbox: Essentials for Painting Success' in several international book contests. Judging will take place later in the year and I will keep you posted if I win any medals!

One of the contests, hosted by Readers' Favorite, also provides written reviews for each entry, and I was pleased to learn today that my book was awarded a 5-star review (that would be 5 out of 5).

Here is what the reviewer wrote:

"Watercolour Toolbox: Essentials for Painting Success by Karen Richardson is a useful guide to all painters and those who are learning to paint. The book guides you step-by-step with useful strategies and demonstrations. It speaks about problems that painters face while painting and, apart from being helpful to novices, the book is also helpful to experienced painters. The book guides you in a sequential manner and speaks about everything that a painter would love to know to improve their techniques and skills. The book covers extensively the right usage of colors, brushes, and good textures for paintings.

The book has eight demonstrations by the author which is really educational and useful. It gives useful tips to improve your techniques and widen your perspective on how to handle the complexities of art. The examples will tell you how to avoid or fix the challenges presented while using watercolors. The tips to keep in mind before you start with the painting are very helpful. It helps you in planning your picture and how to go about it methodically. The book also tells readers about the classic design guidelines and traditional painting methods which will help them improve their craft.

I will recommend this book to all artists and beginners. The most common painting challenges faced by painters and the simple solutions offered by the author will help you enjoy painting. This 65-page tutorial is very helpful when it comes to improving your style."

For information on where to buy my book, click here.

Yesterday I learned how to do something really fun, cool, useful and easy - make a short (30 second) video using the free version of Animoto.com and post it to YouTube.

The seminar was hosted by the Writers' Community of Durham Region at Trent University in Oshawa and taught by Rich Helms.

Animoto is very user-friendly. You just have to upload a couple of images, type in the text for each slide, choose a background theme, and select the music you like. It's amazing to play with, like PowerPoint on steroids, and you can change the slide order, add or delete images and text, try different music and another presentation style.

And if you want to make longer videos, Animoto has very reasonable monthly or annual fees.

Check out my first two videos and let me know what you think: