H.L. Thompson (Heather) is the driving force behind IceKat Design Studio, and is an award-winning fantasy and wildlife artist. IceKat is an online role play persona that exemplifies some of her best qualities and ambitions, as well as vulnerabilities. IceKat is her alter ego, muse, and mascot. That’s IceKat, the white winged kitty in the header at the top of the page.
Heather is currently located in Toronto, Ontario, where she lives with her artsy wife, Chelsey (known online as Phrixy) and their kitties Poet, Parsa, Star, and Pixie. Heather has a love/hate relationship with zombies, and vows to be ready for the zombie apocalypse when it comes.
Contact: You can reach Heather by email at the_icekat@yahoo.ca or click the Facebook link above to follow the IceKat fan page.
Check out her Amazon author page to see all her colouring books and journals available to buy!
Specialties include fantasy, wildlife and anthro art with heavy leanings to the spiritual and narrative. She has designed logos and branding for several organizations, designed and published custom agenda books, created and traded thousands of ATCs and other mail art, created and published several types of paper dolls, and loves to create hand stitched art dolls, journals, and bags. Heather is currently exploring the world of miniatures in 1:12 and playscale.
Heather is classically trained in the arts, having studied in semi-private lessons for 8 years with Nancy Magnish of Markham, Ontario, then later graduated from Claude Watson School for the Arts. She graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Arts Honours in design and art history, which included a year of concurrent teacher’s education. She has since also graduated Valedictorian of the Institute of Entrepreneurial Education. She has worked with youth at risk in Niagara Falls both hands-on and as Secretary of the Board of Directors for Lighthouse Niagara while running her own shop, Near Dark Arts. Her current goal is to have a new shop/studio of her own.
Mediums of choice include oil and acrylic paints, watercolour, coloured pencils, graphite, pen and ink, textiles (custom plush, art dolls, etc), polymer clay, tattoos, woodworking, glass and metal engraving, and just about anything else she lays her hands to.
Heather’s driving passions include the arts, entrepreneurship, trading mail art, event planning, self improvement, the Cult of Awesome, Bast, Dionysos, forest spirits, cats both big and small, thunder storms, drawing at Tim Horton’s, and narrative role play/collaborative story writing.
Awards: Elizabeth B Pearce award, Markham Group of Artists Best in Show (Intermediate), Best 3D, Best Pen & Ink, over 20 1st place awards, over 50 awards total.
Pages here will give specific information about my work and how to commission me, while the blog portion will follow my various projects and thoughts related to art and creative entrepreneurship.