Jen

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?

I forgot I loved to paint

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Last fall I became a member of the CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) as part of my investigating a new direction to take my art. I then attended the CHA Winter show and met fantastic people, learned countless new things about the art licensing industry and was inspired to get back into my creative self… and start creating.

Part of my involvement with this organization is a Yahoo group that shares ideas. About a month ago, another member of the group, Linda Chilcott, suggested we do a group painting project. The idea is to have multiple artists contribute to a single canvas. Without any other idea of what would be involved I signed up to participate. We’re each starting with our own canvas and then passing it on… each contributing to each others projects as we receive them.

So this week I painted mine – it was the first time in eons I’ve painted a picture. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it.

Group project painting part 1 by JGoode


This is crafting acrylic paint on a 9″ x 12″ canvas board.

I’m looking forward to seeing the transformation of this canvas and also joining in with what other’s have started.

If you’re interested in learning how to paint for yourself, I highly recommend the Learn and Master painting home course series by Legacy Learning

IF: expired – my unhappy banana

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “expired”. I was thinking an old wrinkly carrot would be fun, but the more wrinkles I added the more I really wanted to stay away from vegetables for a while. So instead, I came up with the good and bad bananas. On the bright side, the seemingly “bad banana” makes the absolute yummiest banana bread ever!

Food is always an analogy for me, so why not in my quick thought doodles… what do you think of with the word “expired”?

Good and bad banana - illustration friday's expired

Speaking of doodles, I saw a book at Barnes and Nobel tonight – a doodle book. It was a notebook filled with partially finished drawings and sketches, etc. One page I passed was a quick zipper sketch that was half way unzipped with the comment “what’s stuck in the zipper?”. What a cool brainstorming tool! If only we had these fun and quick little thought jogging resources for everything we do.

Easter Bunny coloring page

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Here’s a fun page for you to color with your kids, just in time for Easter. A cute Easter Bunny holding a basket full of eggs. Do you see the birdie? Or how many flowers can you count? Find all the Easter eggs or create a color sequence with the jellybean border. There’s loads of fun in this one.

Print out this free Easter coloring page at Projects for Preschoolers

IF: Subterranean

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All week I’ve been trying to come up with something other than smilie worms for this week’s Illustration Friday topic of “Subterranean”.

Then this morning I thought “fine, I’ll just draw the worms”. As I started to doodle, this tree grew instead…

I had a colored version I started to play with, but the black and white is almost more of a message to me.

I’ve recently decided that sometimes simple is a good way to go as far as imagery is concerned, and not all of my art has to have a grin on it. I’m just happy I unstuck myself from my worm hole.

What do you think?

iCarly, Penguins and happiness

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In my house iCarly or Spongebob are on the TV quite frequently. They’re both shows that appeal to the kids and the adults or kid-like adults in the family.

I prefer iCarly and as reminded by a friend today, I’m a quite fond of Spencer. If dorky sense of humor cracks me up, he’s an artist AND he owns this fabulous penguin t-shirt…

icarly penguin t-shirt

Yes, I have been known to take pics of my TV. How else am I supposed to collect all those penguins?

Now, knowing a bit biased to my own penguin t-shirt designs, I have not tried to see if this one is really available anywhere just yet. However, if you are looking for the 3 cool penguins, I suggest you not follow TV trends, but instead grab this one…

3 penguins tshirt by JGoode
3 penguins t-shirt

Cool, right?

Do you have a Lucky Penguin?

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With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, there’s no time to waste in making sure you’ve gathered all your Irish loving swag. Shamrocks wilt, rainbows fade away and that pot of gold.. well, the current economy has delayed that delivery for a bit.

But a penguin – now THAT I can help with, take your pick of the lovely bunch:

St. Patrick's Day Penguins by JGoode

6 great penguins specific for St. Patrick’s Day available on a variety of t-shirts, mugs, hats, stickers and more. You can also grab yourself some Irish love with the I Love Ireland Penguin

St. Patrick's Day PenguinDo you have your lucky penguin yet??

Or, just in case you need the four leaf clover and the rainbow, I have a penguin for that too…

So hurry, grab yourself some penguin green before those irritating pinchers come strolling along.

Get Your Green On!