Giblet, Part One

Once upon a time I was a doodler. I’d leave my doodles and drawings on book covers and class notes, school binders and church bulletins, and even paper tablecoths at Wednesday night suppers. No paper surface was safe, it would seem and no challenge went unmet. A shout across the classroom of “Hey, Donna, can you draw (fill in the blank)” would be answered with “Sure!” While I seldom guaranteed the results, I was always willing to try!

But somewhere along the way I became discouraged when I saw so many artists whose talent was much greater than my own. Then I got distracted by life and kids and responsibilities and I stopped drawing, except for the occasional poster or logo design for a church event. I put my artistic efforts into making gifts for family & friends and some of those things eventually found their way into my Etsy shop, which my daughter encouraged me to set up a few years ago.

Then I started doodling with a graphics program on my computer and a few months ago I put some doodles in my Zazzle shop. Much to my surprise I’ve made some sales there and I’m having a lot of fun coming up with new designs, particularly for my fellow soap opera fans.

I got a special request a few months ago from one of my soap opera internet buddies. She’d planned a special event with a friend who had an unusual nickname, “Giblet” and wondered if I could draw a pig to put on a t-shirt. I didn’t ask for the details behind the nickname or the significance of the pig, I just told her I’d give it a try. Here’s what I came up with.

She said…” Love the pig - could we put him in a blanket sitting in a chair?” So I did.

“Oh, you are SOO on the right track that my dog looked at me funny when I laughed out loud!!!”

I told her, “Oh, gee...in the ‘Why Didn't I Think of That’ Department.... I was just telling my husband about your reaction to this sketch and he said, ‘If you could make the blanket wrap around the pig you'd have a pig in a blanket!’” She thought that was an excellent idea, so here’s the final sketch (after scanning it and cleaning it up a bit in my graphics program)….

She said “That is PERFECT! That's the one! Thank you so much! A pig in a blanket!”

I decided to add color to the drawing to make it match the color of the text design she’d decided on, too. Here’s the final edition:

And here it is on the t-shirt, with the text we worked out together. Any resemblance to the Guiding Light logo is strictly intentional! (You can click on the shirt to see it in my Zazzle shop)....

And just for grins, I put it on some other products, too. Here's the Giblet mug (click on it to go to that page in my Zazzle shop):

There's another chapter to the Giblet story, but I think I'll save that for the next blog entry, coming soon. For now I'll just say that I LOVED doing this project and I'm definitely planning to stretch my old drawing skill again soon!

I should also add that I showed this drawing to my big sister, a very talented artist (formerly an art director with an advertising firm) and she loved it, too. She thinks I should expand on it and turn it into a line of greeting cards.

What do you think?