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I participated in Cindy Ann Ganaden’s annual ornament exchange this year and to go along with my Santa theme I made these for my group. You can check out more of the ornaments here.

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Just in time for teacher gift season I have some products available in Dollar Stores around the country and each one is just a $1!!

Note pad, notepaper booklets & note cards. Each sold separately.

Note pad, notepaper booklets, note cards & gift bag. Each sold separately.

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The last 5 robots have been added for the fundraiser and the last chance to buy them in Tuesday, January 31st.

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I mentioned in a earlier post that the Woog is going on her first mission trip to Alaska. I am so proud of her bravery and heart to go. She’s been raising money for the trip which is $1250 (big shout out to all her friends & family who’ve donated), she only has $250 more to go! So, to help her out I’ve made some original Junk A Doodles art to help her reach her goal. She helped pick out all the found objects and I put them together. Five are on sale now and five more will be added this week. They are only $20 (not bad for an original piece of art!) and shipping is only $0.20 to cover Etsy’s listing fee and I’m donating the rest of the shipping costs.

Go check out the shop for a look at them all. Here’s my favorite, little ERNIE:

If art isn’t your thing and you want to give a $1 or $2 to the Woog, she’d really appreciate it. You can donate any amount here:

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I have robots on my mind this week that I hope (fingers crossed) I’ll get to show tomorrow so I thought I’d show you what I found looking through the new Creative Teaching Press catalog. I did this bulletin board set for them last year and I loved every minute of it!

I love making Junk A Doodles robots and this is the robot that started my junk style.

Hopefully more on robots tomorrow!!

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Fall is just around the corner, so it’s time to start decorating! I illustrated a fun bulletin board set for Creative Teaching Press featuring all things fall. They also have them as stickers and some other items. I loved doing this project and got to incorporate some of my Granddaddy’s barn wood into the mix.

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Working on a book

^quick iphone shot

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This week is Teacher Appreciation week and I thought I’d share what I did for the Woog’s teacher this year. Her school actually celebrated it school-wide back in February (maybe since May is a rough month to coordinate an event with everyone finishing up testing, etc?). I signed up to bring lunch to the first grade teachers one day and made them a Muffin Tin Meal (which is the cutest idea ever!!).

Also in appreciation of all the teacher’s I have and all the future teachers I’ve had, I pulled together a small selection of teachers I’ve drawn over the years.

And, if you’re looking for a cute teacher’s gift, you can get them one of my placemats from Oopsy Daisy. It can be used as so much more than a placemat. Just be creative!

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I recently designed some stickers for Creative Teaching Press. They are one of my favorite clients to work with because they give me total creative freedom, plus they are all really, really nice and appreciative of the work I do.

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Thanks so much for all your sweet comments on O’Hare! We’re still getting our schedule worked out and this week and I’m easing back into work things but taking it slow. I have some baby bib and baby bedding designs on the calendar this week which I thought were perfect timing!

Here’s a piece I recently completed for a math workbook for Creative Teaching Press. It’s in my found object style.

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I illustrated the December cover of Hal Leonard’s Music Express magazine. This is in my found object style that’s completely digital.

As you can see, I was also was the “open act” for Bon Jovi (tee-hee):

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Last week I went and did an Earth Day project with the Woog's kindergarten class and we made Junk A Doodles®.

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First off, thank you so much for the nice emails and comments on my last post. I really appreciate it and feel so much better getting it all out.

Since the past couple of months have been crazy, I'm just now getting a chance to show teacher gifts from December. I didn't get a picture of it all packaged up (I did good just getting them out the door) but this is what we gave:

I took one of our countdown to school projects and made notecards for all the teachers along with their own rubber stamps. The cards were printed at Overnight Prints and the stamps made at Simon Stamps I highly recommend them both. Great prices, quality and fast shipping!

On another note, I've had to switch my comments over since Haloscan move to a new product. I'm still getting used to how it works and looks.

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My new year started off great when I found my work up on Oopsy Daisy's site - even in cute styled shots (see the mermaid on the beach?). I licensed a few Junk A Doodles® with them and can't wait to get my hands on the actual canvases. They have been on my client wish list for quite a while and I'm glad my persistence and follow-up paid off. So excited about this new relationship!

Tomorrow I'll show you a detailed look at the Valentine's placemats I did for them - super cute! I blogged a sneaky peek here.

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This is an older Junk A Doodles® piece but thought of it when I saw this week's illustration Friday topic "flying."

Here are other "flying" pieces in this style:

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One last piece of art to wrap up the countdown. This has been in my sketchbook for a while and thought it was a perfect piece for this little series.

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Still in Sutex catch-up mode but wanted to post this. Candi commissioned this piece for her daughter's graduation Saturday. Her initials are "AND" so her artwork signature is an ampersand (pretty cool huh?). The Dilhoffs now have 3 original Junk A Dooldles™ in their home. Thanks Candi!

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I've made a little video to show my Junk A Doodles™ process (where I recycle junk) in celebration of earth day. The Woog painted the earth blue and helped pick out just and suggested pieces. Can you find her peeking her hands in the shot and my red pj pants? It's around 9 minutes and worth the watch if you have the time. Hope you like it!

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The above is a thank you postcard I designed last week to send to clients after I work with them (this is for my licensing clients - I have a different one I use for my children's illustration clients). I am getting them printed through Overnight prints since they did an awesome job with my business cards. I hope to get them early next week and I'll show the final product then (along with my Surtex postcards!).

Exactly one month from today I'll be on my way to NY for Surtex. Things are coming along great and I have yet to freak out (but there's still time). I finally figured out what I will show in my booth and how it will all look. That was the biggest stressor and now I feel like a load has been lifted off. I'll be posting tomorrow or Friday on part 5 of my Surtex Planning.

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Thanksgiving is next week!! This is a poster I did over the summer for Scholastic.

***UPDATE: This was pretty cool...My aunt emailed me today and said she got this in her Nov/Dec bundle from Scholastic, so I guess it's hitting teacher's mailboxes now!***

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The above is my full color logo that reflects they type of work I've been getting ready for my licensing portfolio. It's nice to do something a little different from drawing kids :)

I have totally engulfed myself in the licensing world and what I've been finding out is that there are a gazillion companies out there that license work and there is this air of secrecy that surrounds the entire industry from both artist and companies. It's really hard to explain but it's become very evident to me. I understand that some artist have to keep their licensing partners confidential due to specific contract agreements but when you can't see any of a companies or artist's work unless you are a manufacturer, that seems a little weird to me. I totally get why they do it that way, but I'm wondering if people are hurting their business by being so hush-hush (visually and informationally). I'm in no way telling people how to run their business (I still have secrets under my belt) and maybe they've been burned in the past? I think I feel this way because I've always had an "open" portfolio and freely talk about my experiences in the illustration field. It has gotten me thinking if I should be secretive with my work and information. I don't know the answer yet... Anyone else get this vibe about the licensing industry?

I had a great, awesome, long-overdue, meet-up with an old professor of mine from college. She was my absolute favorite and I had lost touch with her after graduation. Over the last 8 years I've been periodically googling her seeing what she was up to and couldn't find anything. When I started thinking seriously about licensing, I thought about how great it would be to pick her brain since I remembered she had dealt with licensing and product development for a company. Well, low and behold, while doing my research on licensing, I happened to find her on the staff page of a licensing agency. Serendipity? Serendipitous in deed! So I was able to pick her brain last week and my brain hasn't stopped firing since.

I've also been reading a lot of blogs from licensing artists and since Christy (love her!) tagged me, I'll share some of my recent licensing favorites:

Tara Reed's Art Licensing Information Blog
Heather Bailey's HELLOmynameisHeather
Paula Prass' Show + Tell
Amy Schimler's Red Fish Circle

And here's a fun piece I did this weekend. It's been on my to-do list for a while. Now I'm working on some things to compliment it:

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Here's a snipet from what I was working on yesterday. I'm please with how the entire piece turned out. I see myself going more and more in this direction for licensing and children's work. There's something so relaxing about making 3-D art :) Now, off to the two, 2-D projects due today... Read the rest of this post

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I did a poster for a client a while back and this is how it looked:

After they sat on it for a while, they ended up not liking it for the age group it was geared towards so they wanted something a little simpler and more straightforward. This is what they went with:


Things like this happen from time-to-time as an illustrator. I can't take it personally. I'm actually happy with both of them and obviously the first one was more fun to make.

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Working on turkey today for an educational poster about Thanksgiving. Whenever I sit down to create my junk a doodles pieces, it's instant relaxation for some reason.

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