The “Cool Granny” Collection – Quirky Grandmas on the Move!
Between 2022 and late 2025 I made a series of cheerful illustrations of an older woman getting up to progressively more ridiculous things — riding a scooter, skateboarding, jumping horses across canyons, babysitting the grandchildren into total chaos. She had big white hair, oversized sunglasses, a bright scarf that trailed behind her wherever she went, and a fundamental refusal to sit still. I called the collection the Cool Granny series, and it was the first proper body of character work I'd put together on Redbubble.
The character has since evolved — she's grown into what I'm now calling the Little Old Lady collection, drawn in a more polished cel-shaded style, and has moved on to driving vintage Austin A35s, monster trucks, and biplanes. But the original painterly-cartoon-era pieces are still available on Redbubble, and they have their own charm — a slightly rougher, more chaotic, more storybook-gone-off-the-rails energy that I still love. This post is a proper look at that original set.
Scooter Granny — Where it all started
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| Scooter Granny |
The one that started it all. Granny cruising confidently on her scooter, oversized sunglasses on, scarf flying behind. Clean, bold, and immediately establishing the character's whole approach to life.
The reason it's a scooter is a small piece of family history. My mother spent most of her life in Whanganui, New Zealand. She raised nine children (!) in the way women of her generation and place raised families — mostly on her own energy, without a great deal of fuss, and without the option of putting her own preferences first for a very long time. When there were finally all of us children were at school, she made a decision my father was not entirely comfortable with: she found a job and bought her own Suzuki motor scooter, so she could commute to work independently. He wasn't sure this was quite proper for a woman her age. She was sure enough for both of them. She rode it, and enjoyed it, and never looked back. Scooter Granny was the piece where I first put that spirit onto a page — an older woman on a motor scooter, unapologetically going where she wanted to go. Everything else in the collection follows from there.
Grocery Chaos Granny — Scooter Edition
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| Grocery Chaos Granny — Scooter Edition |
The moment the series decided it was going to be about chaos as well as spirit. Granny on the scooter, but this time overloaded with groceries, cats clinging for dear life, bread and yarn balls in the air. The original character with all of the consequences added.
Cool Granny on a Skateboard
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| Cool Granny on a Skateboard |
The skateboard piece was where the character crossed a real threshold — riding a scooter is spirited; skateboarding is defiant. Scarf and skirt fluttering, balance perfect, expression completely serene. This is where the collection stopped being about "an active older lady" and became something more specific. The original 2022 blog post for this piece has more on the wider spirit of the collection if you'd like to read further.
Grocery Chaos Granny — Skateboard Edition
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| Grocery Chaos Granny on a Skateboard, with Cat |
The wildest piece in the original set. Granny on the skateboard, still with the groceries, still with the cats clinging on, now at a considerably higher speed. Something for the cat-lover, the humour appreciator, and the person who has clearly given up trying to slow this whole situation down.
Daredevil Horseback Granny
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| Go Nana Go — The Fearless Horseback Granny |
The centrepiece of the collection, and probably the piece that best captures the whole spirit of the series. Granny on horseback, mid-leap across a canyon gorge, cat clinging on for dear life, and the grandchildren cheering her on from the far side with hand-lettered signs — GO NANA!, GO GRANMA!, YOU CAN DO IT! — clearly having complete confidence in her, which may or may not be misplaced. This one always makes me smile.
Babysitting Granny
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| Our Granny Is the Best — Babysitting Granny |
What happens when Grandma is left in charge of the grandchildren? Total bedlam — and pure joy. Granny diving headfirst into the couch-jumping alongside her grandkids, books and toys and cats in the air around them, everyone having the time of their lives. Slightly less about Granny defying expectations and more about her collaborating in the childhood chaos. A warm-hearted piece for the grandmother who genuinely delights in the mess.
Where the Character Went Next
Between 2025 and 2026, I redrew Granny in a more polished cel-shaded illustration style — cleaner lines, brighter and more saturated colour, more graphic-novel than storybook. The character herself stayed the same: same silver hair, same coral scarf, same oversized sunglasses, same refusal to slow down. But the vehicles got bigger.
In her current era she's been spotted cruising Auckland in a vintage yellow Austin A35, and then in a pink-and-yellow flame-painted monster truck, and most recently piloting her own custom biplane. She keeps trading up. The joke is that whatever the family thought she'd calm down to enjoy in her later years, she's decided instead to try something more ambitious.
The 2025 painterly pieces above and the current cel-shaded pieces are all part of the same broader collection on Redbubble, and I've kept both eras available — the earlier work has a rougher, more chaotic energy that suits certain viewers, while the newer work is cleaner and more graphically bold. Take your pick.
Available on Redbubble
All six pieces above are available across the full Redbubble product range — stickers, t-shirts, greeting cards, mugs, art prints, tote bags, and more. They make excellent gifts for a grandmother, mother, or aunt with a sense of humour about herself, or for anyone who loves the specific comic register of an older woman being magnificently in charge of her own life.
Browse the Cool Granny Collection
You can find all my work at my Redbubble shop, KornKob Art — or search Redbubble for kornkobart (one word).
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