Doodle Discussions

Putting a little sparkle in her step

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Unlike me, my daughter loves all things girlie. I know, I doodle cute girl stuff all the time, but I don’t necessarily have it all over my walls and pillowcases either. My daugher adores sparkles, jewels, pink and purple anything – if it’s for girls to be more girl-like, she loves it even more. So when she started complaining that her sparkly pink shoes hurt, I had to come up with something to replace the fancy shoes. I didn’t want to go out an get a new pair, especially with fall and Colorado snow on it’s way. So instead I grabbed a cheap pair of sneakers from Walmart,  a few sets of shimmery Tulip brand fabric paint and planned a girls art day.

We whipped out the brushes and between the two of us we created a unique pair of shoes that not only fit fabulous, but sparkle better than the last pair. We had a great day together being creative and I even felt a little girly fun in the process.

hand painted shoes by Jen Goode

Unfortunately these aren’t worn as much as I expected. One of the big brothers stole a shoelace to replace the tie on his swim trunks… boys, they just don’t understand!

Double cheeseburgers are delightful

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “double”. I was originally going to make a penguin double (of course I was), but while I was digging through my penguin archive to find the perfect participant, the cheeseburger jumped out and threw some lettuce at me. I couldn’t ignore him, I guess he was feeling a bit thin and wanted to share the beefy love a little more.

Happy double cheese burger by Jen Goode
Happy double cheese burger by Jen Goode

I know, I should have added bacon because a cheeseburger without bacon is like a salad without croutons… pizza without pepperoni… a kiss without the pucker (is that possible?). However, I have a few non-meat eating pals and like to try to flaunt my carnivorous attitude away from their direction. Thus I decided I’d hold off on the extra extra meat today.

If this is a little too much burger for you, you can always stick with the original happy cheeseburger.

Breakfast should always be happy

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This week’s Illustration Friday is “breakfast”. Apparently I’m thinking happy thoughts of breakfast at 6pm because the first thing I thought of was a smiley egg. I love breakfast – There’s something about pancakes and bacon and even hash browns that starts the day off just perfectly.

happy breakfast
Happy breakfast by Jen Goode

I love crafting and so does the penguin

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i love crafting penguin by jgoodeI was listening to a weekly web-cast called Cool 2 Craft and realized I didn’t have a crafting penguin. How is that possible? With all the other gazillion penguins I’ve created over the years, and as much as I love crafting myself, I was in shock to find out I never created an official crafting penguin!

So while I listened to all the great ideas on the show, I drew up this new penguin and I’m positive it loves to craft too. I haven’t created a brand new penguin in a while and I can honestly blame it on the glue. I went to a craft trade show back in January and absolutely fell in love with crafting all over again. So lately I’ve been spending most of my time jumping back into the craft scene.

I’ve made a ton of new friends and am learning new things every day. Most importantly, I’m finding my creative mojo all over again. It’s been a long time I’ve played in this area of my brain – I forgot how much I loved it. Hands-on creativity can’t be matched. I’m seeing more ideas in my head. You should try it! grab a piece of clay and just squish it around a while… see what happens.

I don’t have a particular area of crafting I like more than others although I really enjoy textures… fabrics, paper, anything tactile is very intriguing to me. I also really enjoy mixing things to see what happens. Combine glue and paint or fabric and clay… mix and match to see how the textures and materials combine. One of my most recent activities has been creating stamps out of craft foam and stencils out of freezer paper. I’ll show examples and some how to tutorials another day. These ideas both open the doors even wider for using my own drawings on a variety of materials.

What’s your favorite crafting area?

Diversify your art

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watercolor painting of orchidsBeing consistant with style and technique is important when striving for a career in art. However I find it rather inspiring and rejuvenating to try new ideas. learning a technique in an entirely different discipline can inspire an idea in an area I’m already familiar. For example, I love tactile features in art such different types of papers and fabrics. I enjoy creating mixed media collages and am always looking for new ideas of things to incorporate. This interest in textures definitely plays a role in how I color the images I use in my business.

Being able to jump into using different mediums or at least become familiar with different techniques can also be helpful if you want to broaden the reach of your art. I think it’s important to know who you are as an artist and what you can accomplish, but I think it’s just as important to be able to find ways to bring out new ideas and grow your artistic ability… and for me it’s using different tools.

Over this past weekend I was trying to come up with a gift idea for my grandmother’s birthday. She loves orchids and I knew I wanted to make her something rather than purchase from the store. So I dug out the watercolors, which I haven’t touched in ages, and I painted a little picture of an orchid. I used this image to make reproductions as handmade note cards she can send to her friends. The goal was to come up with something I thought she might like while trying something new. It didn’t turn out like the picture in my head, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

The trick is to challenge your creative brain. Something as simple as a color change, if you use the same palette all the time, can really awake your creative thinking side. Stretch your artist muscle and try something new and see what you can come up with… it might surprise you what you didn’t know you can do.

Free download designs for Sizzix Scoreboards Scalloped Box

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A few weeks ago I participated with Eileen Hull and her Scalloped Box Sizzix Scoreboards die as part of a group promotion effort. I made a cute little princess purse party favor as my contribution to the blog hop. Thanks to all of you, I won the fun voting part of the event!

Thank You Penguin

(The prize was the actual Sizzix die – hooray!)

So as a little give back to you, I’ve created a few templates you are free to use with your own Sizzix Scalloped Box Die.

Here’s how to use the free printable patterns:

  1. First you need to put guides on your die.
    • Take a piece of tape and place it across the entire die at the top cut line. I used painters tape
    • Remove the top that is on the face of the die so you are left with tape on each side, these will be your guides for lining up the printable templates.
  2. Print out a design
  3. Cut along the dotted lines
  4. Match up the “top line” with the guides and tape in place
  5. Cut as usual.

You can use these template designs on paper or printable/iron on fabric as well. These designs are for personal use only.


Download the free printable designs below
(click and save to your desktop)


Princess Pink
Ladybugs

Textured Love
Old World Map
(Image from Clipart.com)



Dip loves Chip

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “Dip” and without hesitation Dip Loves Chip came to mind, or if you agree with my son, it’s Chip Love Dip… I’m glad it’s mutual.

One of my all time personal favorite doodles is Peanut Butter loves Jelly… so I’ve been looking for an excuse to create a loving chip and dip couple. In this case, it’s french onion… love overcomes the stinky breath.

Dip loves Chip by JGoode
T-shirts and other fun goodies featuring Dip Loves Chip are also available

What’s your snack love of choice?

Penguins to the rescue!

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “Rescue” and my first thought was my good ol’ trusted friend, the Super hero penguin. Super heros are supposed to protect and rescue us when we’re in need, right?

Penguins to the rescue!

But what about every day heros? There are tons of penguins all around just waiting to rescue us in a variety of situations…

The fire rescue penguin, police officer penguin, US military penguin and even the pretty obvious, rescue penguin. There are plenty of other careers that involving rescuing every day…

There is also the not so obvious space commander penguin rescuing us from peril in the outter realms of the universe (or just weird space alient penguins) or the not so obvious (and not shown here) psychologist penguin or the bandaid penguin, rescuing us from ourselves and our own alter egos.

I’m sure I could go on for a while as there are unlimited number of situations I’m sure one of us could use a little rescuing.

What can you imagine up as your rescue penguin?