Stick Figures Are Not Just Child’s Play

Cindy Kassebaum, 31, seized a business opportunity with, of all people, her 4-year-old artist daughter, Danica, in a scenario that developed this way:

Last year Kassebaum gave birth to another daughter, Courtney, and decided to send original birth announcements.

The card was decorated with a simplistic drawing made by Danica. The quaint artwork showed the mother, father, and both siblings and was selected from one of six drawn for the card by Danica.

The cards gained a measure of notoriety from the 74 friends and relatives who received them.

“As soon as people got the announcements we started getting phone calls telling us how different and cute the announcement looked,” she said. “They said I should find a way to sell them.”

Buoyed by their enthusiasm, Kassebaum decided the birth announcement card was a marketable item.

“Kidoodles,” as she cleverly named her new product, had a fair measure of success so Danica, who was named a partner in the venture by her mother, was asked to make more drawings.

But Kassebaum, who opened a graphic design business in her Anaheim home to be with her children, could hardly forecast that Danica, now 5 and attending school, would suddenly lose some of her appeal as an artist.

“She just became too sophisticated,” said Kassebaum, a former Cypress College advertising design student and a former art director for Orange Coast Magazine.

The sticklike characters in Danica’s original drawings were faceless, hairless and without clothes.

“We could see her developing very rapidly and now she was putting hair and clothes on her people,” Kassebaum said. “The drawings have lost the fresh crispness and innocence of her artwork in just six months.”

But not to worry, said Kassebaum, who is exploring other avenues for Danica’s artwork, including Christmas cards, children’s stationery and birthday cards, among others.

“Danica thinks this is a lot of fun and if she really wants to do more, I’ll encourage her to do it,” Kassebaum said. “If not, we’ll just work with what we have.”

During an interview at her home, Danica said she was undecided. “I don’t know if I’ll do more” was her first reply, but she quickly recanted. “Maybe I will.”

Perhaps it was the knowledge that the profits from Kidoodles is put in a college fund that made Danica think again.

“She knows exactly what is going on and looks at it as part of her business,” said Kassebaum, a graduate of Magnolia High School in Anaheim.

Adds Kassebaum: “I don’t want to be a pushy mother. I want this to be a fun thing. If I had to force her to do it, I wouldn’t do it.

“I can see it evolving into more than just the birth announcements,” said Kassebaum, whose husband, Kurt, is an engineer at McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach. “We’re in a process of developing a brochure of the various types of cards we will offer.”

Regardless of her daughter’s future artistic successes as well as the success of the announcements, Kassebaum feels more self-assured working with her at home.

“I felt guilty not being home with Danica,” she said. “I thought I was being a bad mom.”