JGoode

Vintage Butterflies for a modern day

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A year or so ago I went through a phase of needing to create pretty things. Really frilly, girly, ice tea on a hot southern day kind of “old time”, almost Victorian kind of pretty. During that period the Vintage Butterflies was created.

Vintage Butterflies

It’s a combination of real butterfly photos and old ad line drawings intertwined with a Nathanel Hawthorne quote that reads:

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

This is the only image of its kind in my current collection. I haven’t found that place in my mind to create another that is inspired in the same way. I have a dear friend that would jump for joy if I created another, and I’ve promised her that one day I will… but for now, the vintage butterflies stand alone in their happy place.

We love corn nuts

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I just returned from a short little trip. We drove through the heart of cornhusker country – Nebraska Cornerhuskers that is. So, I thought today would be a great day to stand up, do a little cornhusker dance and show off my Corn Nut doodle.

Corn Nut

Originally this design was created with the food in mind… the actual corn nut. However, a few people have read the name a bit differently, and I like it. A nut that is corny, someone that is just funny and goofy and likes wacky, silly things. Or, a big fan of corn – my son is one of those, he loves corn.. the kind you eat.

So if you’re a little nutty or a lot corny or just really like corn… this nut’s for you!

Peace Sign Doodles

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One of the very first designs I ever put up for sale that wasn’t, at the time – in my mind, a “real” peace of art… was my doodle peace Love and Happiness design.

Peace , Love and Happiness

Peace , Love and Happiness

I loved the concept and the style, but it was more for me than it was for my online art collection. I needed the light and airy happiness. I need the bright colors and I needed that extra bit of sunshine. Most of all, I needed to share that whole concept….

Amazingly, the peace sign, by itself started to sell quite often. I still am not sure what triggered the interest.. but I’m so glad people found it and liked and it wanted one for themselves.

Peace Sign Doodle
Peace Sign Doodle

I’ve since added a collection of “Peace, love and happiness” designs… all in the same style. If you’re interested in a version of this design not yet available, let me know!

Monkey! Monkey!

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I love how many cute monkey characters there are out in the world… so I have created a few of my own. I keep playing with the same basic concept, and every now and again I come up with a variation I really like.

My first monkey was this crazy guy

Cheeky Monkey

Cheeky Monkey

He eventually evolved into a little less chaotic version…

I Love Monkeys

I Love Monkeys

This second guy has a whole pile of fun alternate views for the same character. Monkey dressed in a few dozen different outfits. I really wanted something even more cute for the even younger crowd, so I have been playing with some baby monkey doodles… more about those later.

My first non-doodle that sold

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When I first started selling my art online, I really wanted to focus on more fine art and photography. I never offered my now favorite doodly designs. I never stopped to consider my doodles worthy of selling. I was a designer… not a doodler.

It’s interesting for me to look back now and see the transition of where my art have been and where it is now. One of my first for-sale images that actually sold was this tulip photo. My sister-in-law made the purchase and I was instantly motivated to keep going. I think she still has it hanging in her kitchen.

Journals and Note Books
Tulips by JGoode

“Add a splash of color and peaceful beauty to your day with an original floral print by jgoode. Tulips in shades of plum and sage inspire warmth and serenity!”

Meet the Chef Penguin

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Lately, in my house, we’ve been cooking a lot. Tons of celebrations and cakes and family and food. We love to cook together, especially banana bread. So I thought a great way to start “today’s featured design” would be to start out with our little friend the Chef penguin

Chef penguin

Chef penguin, a fun original penguin design by JGoode. T-shirts and gifts, for your favorite Chef. View Available Products

Tuesday's Topic: Sunshiney

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I just stopped to hunt down a topic idea, as it’s definitely past the beginning of the day and I am still drawing a blank on suggested topics. Things have been busy at my house… for the first time in years we have plans to go places and see people… multiple times within months. We have baseball and soccer and swimming and school ending and registration starting. We have creativity coming out of our ears, but it’s all handmade crafty types of projects, not visions of fabulous new doodles.

And then, today, my baby girl turned a year old.

My world is standing still in the midst of the universe’s ever changing frantic chaos. I can’t begin to remember where the year went. I remember this day last year and all of the sudden today is here.

What have I been doing with the year? What have I accomplished? What great new designs have I created for you to enjoy? I don’t know. It’s all fuzzy when I try to get a good picture to recap the events over the last 12 months. I do know i was here to see her first tooth and hear her first babblings… and watch her first stepswith accompanying first falls. That makes up for all the lost time and definitely all the lost sleep..

So back to my topic searching, I looked on one of my favorite daily trivia sites and found that today is “Pick Strawberries Day”. What a brilliantly colorful and happy kind of view that brings to my mind’s eye. Just yesterday I played hookie from doodling while my 5 year old and I planted our first real veggie garden. We included strawberries.. just because they’re our favorite to pick and eat fresh.

The thought of this brings a smile… a great big smile. Every day should be a strawberry picking day. Giggles and skipping and a little bit of silliness. A day to enjoy something sweet, no matter how many seeds and no matter how small. Because, when there are strawberries, you know there had to have been some fabulous sunshine in the recent past, if not today… there definitely was last week. The kind of days that are filled with sunshiney smiley happy oh-so-joyful visions of delight.. or the thoughts of such rainbowness.

i don’t have any smiley strawberries to share with you today — I have a baby girl’s birthday to celebrate instead. — but next week, watch out… smilies galore!

Strawberry Girl
I’m a Strawberry Girl!