Emila Yusof

Updated my gallery with more photos. I’m not a pro, expect flaws here and there.

HDUP SEORANG BLOGGER or Life as a blogger is a contest hosted by Denaihati and sponsored by eQurban.com.

This entry is related to my first post – HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER I.

Have you read the part one yet? Ok, cool. Now the next thing you need to know is why Emila blogs?

I actually blog just for fun in the beginning and it became serious when I quit my 9 to 5 job. I mostly share my artworks with people with the hope of getting constructive comments and from there I would try to improve my work. Later on, I developed an interest of becoming a children’s book illustrator and I see that blogging is just the right platform to get my art and self known to public. And so I built up my portfolio from scratch, from doing personal artworks to taking up commission jobs. I recorded everything in my blog. I joined social networks to connect with people and let them know what’s new in my blog.

I took the opportunity of blogging and tried making some money by doing paid posts, sell hand-painted totes, create illustrations for online shops such as GCU, Imagekind, Zazzle and Etsy. I made quite a descent pocket money but that does not gain me a lot of money, so I decided to open up my own online little shop to sell my stuff and take design jobs for blog makeovers or header illustrations or personalised dolly (thanks to my blogger buddy, Marzie for the idea of selling the dolly). Alhamdulillah, todate, I get a lot of online commission jobs.

My effort of getting myself known has been fruitful. Two years ago, a publisher discovered me! And last year, I won big; I was the first winner of Foldees.com greeting card contest and bagged a Wacom tablet plus hard cold cash of RM2500.  And early this year, I became the Grand Prize winner of Blog4FT contest for my “Kuala Lumpur: A to Z Fun things to do with Kids” entry. It was an illustrated e-book that I offer for free downloads. This has won me a brand new Peugeot 308 Vti!! Back in 2007, I made it to the Top 5 of AMBP list and got to stay at Awana Genting. And best thing is, todate, I have thousands of friends locally and internationally.

My son, Yassin, posing with our winning car. He and his dad were my biggest supporters throughout the Blog4FT contest.

You see, being a blogger is worth it. If not for blogging, I would not have been invited to join such contests and win something. If not for blogging, I would have not been discovered by  Linda Tan Lingard who is willing to publish my first picture book and sponsor my trip to Italy to attend the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and made it possible for me to blog from Italy. If not for blogging, I would have not met Yusof Gajah, the famous award-winning illustrator who has made it possible for me to join the Words+Pictures=Book, Contemporary Malaysian Picture Book Illustration Exhibition at Petronas Gallery.

Somewhere near Trevi, Italy

You see, being a blogger is really worth it. It has realised a dream of a typical housewife to be a children’s book writer and illustrator and get rewarded with things that she could not buy on her own.

This is my story; life as a blogger. HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER.

p/s: I am taking this opportunity to thank all of you who has made my blogging life a successful one. A BIG THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

Related Posts:
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER I
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER II

This contest is hosted by Denaihati and sponsored by eQurban.com.

How often can you get a chance collecting postcards, catalogs and books at the famous Bologna Children’s Bookfair in Italy? And how often can you buy an additional bag at a Sunday Market in Bologna to accommodate your collection of postcards and catalogs and made yourself look like a fool carrying the stone heavy bag up the stairs at the Stazione Centrale (Train Station)?

Such was great experience although my wrists still hurt from carrying that particular bag.

I display my postcards collection at my little working corner and from time to time, I flip through colorful catalogs while sipping coffee. They never fail to amaze me each time. And the experience of bringing them back home never fail to make me smile.

Mi tesoro dell’esperienza per sempre.

HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER or Life as a blogger is a contest hosted by Denaihati and sponsored by eQurban.com.

Here’s my story as a blogger:

When I first started blogging, it was on rememory.com early 2002 (or was it late 2001? I kinda forgot but it was circa those two years). That time it was just known as online journal. I had more than 50 entries. One of it has won me a USD100 amazon.com voucher. I was estatic! I spent the voucher on Encarta Encylopaedia, an Einstein book for my hubby who was my boyfriend back then, a few good novels including Home is Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts; my favourite of all time.

I made news friends from Malaysia not to mention a buddy also on rememory.com, Khemy, as well as friends across the universe. But I was not really satisfied with it as I cannot adjust the look of my page. And so I abandoned the journal. I visited the site once in a while but came to know that it was closed down back in 2008. If it is still there, I certainly will give my link and let you read all the nonsense that I wrote. Lol.

It was in middle 2005 when I registered for Friendster. I had few posts as well and my only friends were Marzie my colleague (yes, Marzie is my longtime blogging buddy) and Helmy. Comments only came from them, not leaving behind Daliza, another colleague of mine, also Helmy’s wife.

Being a person who likes to change things and have it my way, I was not satisfied with my Friendster’s look. I could not do what I want to do and so I registered for Blogspot late 2006. I was so happy because I finally found a platform where I can change the look to suit my liking. It stayed on for a year before I decided to change to WordPress. And so I got myself my own domain and hosting and transferred all posts from Blogspot to WordPress. I lost over 1000 comments as I did not know how to transfer them. Boy! It was sure tough to learn WordPress but over time, I managed to get acquainted with the platform. A basic webmaster course sponsored by the company I was working with back in 2003 really did helped me in understanding html, javascript and php better.

Well, here I am today, still using WordPress. Have been using it for three years now and don’t think I will jump to another platform in the near future. Buy hey, who knows, I might change to Joomla tomorrow. Haha, kidding!

Being a blogger is not always easy. I mean as a freelancer like me, I depend a lot on blogging. I have so many stories to share but as for now, it is sufficient to tell you how I started blogging, when I started and what platform did I used.

I am certainly not a pioneer but my blogging life started some eight years ago. I will share more aspects on my Life as a Blogger or HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER on my second post on 29th August. Stay tune.

Related Posts:
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER I
HIDUP SEORANG BLOGGER II

This contest is hosted by Denaihati and sponsored by eQurban.com.

I have been wanting to replace my album page with the link to this microsite (entitled From the Eyes and Heart of Emila) for quite sometimes already but have been delaying it because I have not upload many pictures yet. I hope by posting this up, one way or another, will push me to update often.

Have fixed the navigation menu to replace the album link with this one.

I have been dilly-dallying a big job for quite sometimes already and few days ago I got a reminder to submit at least the covers first. Drawing traditionally, I will take my own sweeeeeeeeeeet time adding details and perfecting the colors. After the scanning process, I will take some more sweeeeeeeeeet time perfecting the drawing by cleaning and neating it. So overall, for a drawing, I will take more than three days. But it will take more days when the mood is not there. Seeing me working like that, my husband suggested that I work smart, drawing digitally using Corel Painter. At first I was a bit reluctant but thinking that I will save more time, I gave in to the idea. And so, I installed Corel Painter Essential 3 that came free with the Wacom tablet I won from Foldees.com.

So, after spending a day getting acquainted with Essential, I start on the first drawing of the book covers. So far so good, but essentially, this Essential version is quite limited. But that’s okay I guess, long as there’s a brush tool and a color palette; the two most essential tools, I think I can live essentially with the Essential version.

Petronas Gallery will be dedicating a segment entitled “Words+Pictures=Book | Contemporary Malaysian Picture Book Illustration” in conjunction with the nation’s 53rd anniversary.

I am so honoured to be invited as one of the 10 Malaysian Illustrators to participate in Words+Pictures=Book exhibition. Other 9 participating Illustrators are Yusof Ismail a.k.a Yusof Gajah, Azalan Hussein, Shukri Edrus, Jainal Amambing, Awang Fadillah Ali Hussein, Faizal Abdul Jalil, Khairul Azmir Shoib, Nur Azmi Mokhtar and Chong Chin Yew.

Words+Pictures=Book | Contemporary Malaysian Picture Book Illustration
Venue: Bustle Gallery, Petronas Gallery, KLCC
Date: 13 Jul 2010 – 26 Sep 2010

Admission is free.

One of three original illustrations submitted to Petronas Gallery | © Petronas Gallery

As an illustrator, I put a copyright statement at my sidebar and also the terms of use under the Terms page on the navigation menu, in which I wrote:

Please respect my copyright

No commercial uses are permitted without specific, written permission, with an inked signature. Commercial activities prohibited include: selling the my illustrations/photos/verses, putting them on items to be sold, or otherwise making money from them, exchanging anything of value for them, or using them to increase the value of your website or blog, or print publication, or electronic publication, or any other kind of publication, or any other commercial use.

If you like to license my illustrations/photos/verses, please write to me at emila@emilayusof.com

You can:

In all cases, my name, Emila Yusof with link to my blog http://emilayusof.com MUST be included.

1. use (as is) my illustrations/photos/verses to accompany your posts

2. download and print as personal greeting cards to share any illustrations/photos/verses with other individuals you care about.

You cannot:

1. send my illustrations/photos/verses to people by e-mail. If you want a person, or group of people (as in a group e-mail) to see my illustrations/photos/verses, please send them to my blog to view rather than pasting them in the e-mail. Type my website address or images URL into your e-mail.

2. edit my illustrations/photos/verses and integrate them in graphic software as collage, photo montage, etc or even your website/blog header.

3. hot-linking the images directly from my blog. Please save the images in your hardisk and upload them to your server or blog provider.

I hope you enjoy my illustrations/photos/verses and that they can help brighten your days.

Thank you for visiting my site! Have a good day.

Emila Yusof

Today, a little bird told me that someone has breached the ‘You cannot‘ term #2. I am not being rude but I need to highlight this matter as doing illustrations is my BREAD AND BUTTER and people pay me for what I am doing. Using it for the purpose that I mentioned under the ‘You cannot‘ is not allowed. But of course the the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution and that kind of stuff.

Please, I am begging you to read my blog thoroughly, pages to pages, before using my illustrations. Peek also at my sidebar for the copyright terms. And if you click on the creative commons’ link you’ll get this:

With the understanding that:

• Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
• Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
  • Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
  • The author’s moral rights;
  • Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
• Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

Do you ever feel that you have so many things to talk but later it won’t come out when you’re in front of people? Do you feel that you can pour your thoughts better on paper than you speak? Do you feel that your stomach aches when you have to talk to people?

I feel all of the above.

Informally, I can just talk and talk and talk. My friends labeled me as a ‘busybody’, to the extend. But when it comes to formal occasion such as interview or talk session,  I suddenly have nothing to say. My mind goes blank and I struggled to retrieve the all the information I have in my head.

Yes, it is that bad.

I was not doing that well on the live talk show last Friday. Before the show begun, I have so much to say. Even during the commercial break. Even when I left the studio to head back home.

I just do not know why in the world I went blank or stutter during the actual show. This is a serious problem. I need to break my ice.

Puan Zakiah Hj ISa (a.k.a Mama Gajah), Pak Yusof Gajah, Dzulfitri Yusop (anchor of Agenda Awani) and yours truly. Discussion was about ‘Literasi Buku Kanak-Kanak di Abad 21, Agenda Awani, Friday 18th June 2010.