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Local artist illustrates book

Corey Hardeman is used to messy spaces and smiling faces. Her painting studio often takes on the clutter of the job as the Cariboo painter plows through her ongoing projects.

Corey Hardeman is used to messy spaces and smiling faces.

Her painting studio often takes on the clutter of the job as the Cariboo painter plows through her ongoing projects. But her work is popular and in art battles and exhibitions, both her renderings and her outgoing personality bring out the sunny side of the people around her.

Few people have enjoyed the Hardeman spirit more than Meaghan Matheson. The television news graphics designer has been laughing and creating with Hardeman since their early youth.

"She's been my friend since junior high," Hardeman said. The two attended Halifax Central back when it was called Cornwallis Junior High School.

Hardeman was not a professional painter yet but was already a prolific young artist and Matheson was not a writer but they were each showing early signs of these later pursuits. Matheson made her authorship official when she was watching her two young daughters help with some household chores and a book idea flashed in her mind. She began to write it and as the text unfolded, she got her second epiphany: the illustrations should be done by her old friend.

"Corey and I would do things together like draw silly pictures of our friends. I'd come up with ideas and she would draw them," said Matheson. "The first person outside the house I showed the story to was Corey. It helps being friends and knowing each other so well, she knew exactly what I wanted, and the pictures came out amazingly."

The result was the story Messy Spaces, Smiling Faces. The two central characters are a pair of helpful little girls.

"She has actually never met my children, but she sees their Facebook pictures and she's talked to them on the phone. And she just nailed it," said Matheson.

"I have a friend who is a professional illustrator, so I consulted," Hardeman said. "I illustrate things for my kids all the time, but this was not something you'd normally come up with yourself, so there was a fair bit of pressure I felt to get it done, and a fair bit of pressure to match the images to the words. She sent me the words, and we decided on a rough format, then I did some rough sketches, she approved those, and so I then did some paintings sort of as a final draft. And it was so much fun."

Messy Spaces, Smiling Faces had an east coast launch in November at a children's store called Nurture. It was available in Maritime bookstores in time for Christmas, then online distribution was established through Amazon, Google Play, Barnes And Noble, and the FriesenPress.com website, the home of the publishing house that printed the book.

Matheson said the ideas are now circling for future children's books. She has some preliminary drafts done but says she wants to spend some more time learning the marketing craft through the process of selling Messy Spaces, Smiling Faces.

All that work is on her shoulders, since the publication was not by a full-service publisher. Matheson said there is a temptation to approach a major publishing house for her next books, but also some caution signs.

"As a self-publisher I could pick who I wanted to do the illustrations. I didn't even have a second thought about who I wanted, there was no one else but Corey, for me," she said. "To do a second or third would still give me that ability to work with her if I stay as a self-publisher, but when you go with another publisher they quite often use their own illustrators and you can't choose it yourself."

Hardeman illustrated a second author's children's story but it is a project still under wraps.

To see her latest paintings, visit the Studio 2880 gallery, where her work is the Community Arts Council's featured art show through the Canada Winter Games period.