Pimpin' my ride...

...caricaturist-style!

Thanks to John Hannum at Goshen Signs, who was even able to get the fonts I've always used on my various marketing stuff (Ravie and Georgia for the font-freaks out there :-). It will be a thrill to hear from the first client who found out about my work through my car!

Freshman Orientation #2

Another night back on the gym balcony at my local university:

Yeah, I'm having fun!

Below: in progress...

Ta-da!

Some more collegiate faces:

It was not a studious atmosphere at all! ;-)

Can you guess which one won the limbo contest? :-)
I had my other half there for some not-taken-by-me footage:

Orange domination...

On Sunday I went down to Baltimore to draw...so my orange prismacolor stix got a working over, and so did the Orioles' opposing team, the Cincinnati Reds.

 This is my overhead view at the ballpark. I often wonder what went on in my exact caricaturing spot one hundred years ago (it was a railroad freight warehouse.) 

 I drew mostly doubles for some reason.

 "It's her birthday. Can you make her batting and me pitching?"

Poor little guy was fine all during the drawing phase, and decided to have a melt-down at the end.
If you know O's baseball, you'll appreciate their names: Camden and Callie.
(And for everyone else, their names are after Camden Yards and Cal Ripken. These kids have fanatical parents!)

40th birthday backyard bash

On Saturday evening, during the long summer twilight, I drew at a fabulously fun fortieth birthday party:

Fun because the weather was once again perfect, the guests were giddy, and the music was merry:

Here's some of what ended up on paper: (yes, it was a rare COLOR gig!)

It went over so well that my client (the lucky hubby of the gorgeous forty-year-old) doubled my time there. Thank you! :-) :-) :-)

They were among the last of the evening to be drawn.

I didn't keep count, but was told I'd drawn 50+ people in four hours in color--that's not quite five minutes per. I was definitely on a roll!

Enjoy the video, with Mummer accompaniment!

College freshman orientation...

Last week's high school seniors are this week's college freshmen! A local university held a early orientation party in the gymnasium complete with inflatable, deejay, water ice, and caricaturist...... (me!)

Of course, once one group asks for a quadruple, lots of people do. On such gigs, I hardly use any paper!

My subjects had to climb up a stairway to get to me:

but we had a good view of the proceedings:

They're doing the ubiquitous Chicken Dance here.

Video snippet:

A 50th birthday golfer...

A recent digital commission:

I'm glad he had an "i" in his name! :-)
The client said: Just wanted to let you know that everyone loved the caricature you did for Kevin for his surprise 50^th. Thanks!

A Lovely Luau Wedding

I had only one gig this past weekend, but it was a very special and memorable one---a beautiful backyard wedding Hawaiian-style!

The first surprise was when I pulled into the driveway, where my client (the bride) had told me I'd have a space just for me. She didn't tell me it would be a personalized space!

The amazing thing, aside from the thoughtfulness of it, was:  this was the very first event I had driven to in my new car! After many years of faithful getting-me-to-all-manner-of-gigs service, I retired my old Honda for a snazzy red baby! It wasn't something I'd planned on mentioning on this blog, but the happy-parking-space-karma made it impossible not to. :-) Thank you, Pat and Doug!
(They did it for Famous Dave's, too.)

So much love and planning went into this wedding, by the artsy-craftsy bride--check out all the decorations she did herself:

She could start a business doing signs! Below, the dance floor:

I arrived after the actual wedding, but I did get to see the (bubbly) first dance:

MMMMmmmmm Barbecue! Famous Dave's is definitely good!

 The cake was made to resemble Doug's shirt. There was also a little custom sculpture of the couple for a cake-topper.

Okay, now for the caricatures! First, the bride and groom, then their guests:

After everyone was drawn, amid much laughter, a pinata awaited in the front yard:

Anyone who knows my fiance JB would do a double-take, as I did, when I met the brother of the bride (man on right in above photo.)  Except for his eyes, nose and massive eyebrows, he could be JB's twin--same coloring, height, build, hairstyle, posture, clothes choice, etc. I mentioned this to the gentleman and his wife, showed them a photo on my phone, and then we came up with the idea for this:

Haha! Here's a photo of JB and I taken the next day (Sunday) to compare--his hair is being smushed by the sunglasses, normally it  does stand up.

Yeah, this is a good excuse for a photo of my better half on my blog ;-)

You better believe I took some video at the wedding!

Finally, my client sent me a nice email afterwards...I am so lucky to have such wonderful clients! Thank you Pat and Doug!!

Emily,  I can not truly begin to express how pleased Doug and I were to have you at our wedding.  Having you draw the caricatures of every one of our guests was the perfect addition to our wedding reception.  Your caricatures will be displayed in homes from Oregon - to Colorado - to West Virginia, and of course Delaware.  We are already thinking of our next family reunion and how we can manage to have you be part of that event.  Thank you so much, you were truly welcomed and appreciated.