State Fair 2011 wrap-up

This just might be my biggest, longest blog post ever...because I didn't keep up with it very well while in Texas. So here goes!

There's our booth, in the shadow of the Cotton Bowl...

...with a long patient line later in the day! The lady in blue and her adult son will show up in a drawing in this post later on. ;-)

Colleague Celestia finishing up a Dr. Who-fan young man...

Colleague Vlad working on a Batman family...

Colleague Paul about to start airbrushing a dad and his toddler.

This is the view from my subject's seat...below are samples of my work this year :-)

We draw families...

tweens...

kids...

and couples.

Even celebrity-lookalikes!

These are two sets of sisters...

This couple asked for a landscape orientation. More room to widen heads! ;-)

More couples!

But this couple is a mother and son. And SHE asked me to make it say he was single!!

This group is a father and his FIVE sons. Three doubles took me awhile!

A brave dad and son walking around in Cardinals garb in Ranger country. (The World Series was in town!)

This is proof that airbrush artists can victimize themselves into unfixable mistakes. Brown paint plopped out of my side-feed cup ---right on the blonde's face---because I overfilled it. Luckily, it was the only mess-up during the fair that required a complete re-draw. ( I had other little foibles happen, but was able  to either camouflage them or make them look deliberate. Hey, that's being an artist, right?) I gave the unfinished dud to the girls as well. It was interesting to me to compare the two.

So many people were in red Texas Rangers gear, it felt like the Dallas Cowboys have been sadly forgotten!

However, this lady asked me to put her in a red top with a red background, as she has a collection of caricatures and portraits done that way. She told me my result would make it up on her wall! :-)

Teenage boys are ALWAYS fun to draw.

This young lady had interesting asymetrical hair.

This boy asked for his Domo to be included. Then I found out that Paul and Vlad had drawn his dad and uncle, too!

Another great smile!

MORE couples!

Uh oh! There's Celestia being paparazzied while trying to get the attention of some little kid she must've been drawing right then...

Speaking of Celestia, I decided to try her favored method of drawing this year for my BW caricatures. Through her, I bought a Caran D'Ache lead holder and 6mm 6b leads which are used with a blending stump. She uses these for all her live work, but I found that my speed was slower when using them. No doubt that was from non-familiarity, but I think I got some good results with them. 

This young lady's shirt lit up AND she asked for the saying that appears on her caricature.

Two little brown-eyed boys...

...and a BIG brown-eyed boy with his girl!

Caricatures can mark special occasions in the life of any couple, and I had my share of special ones this fair:

A 25th anniversary caricature for repeat clients: he got to me before she did and told me to put them in bridal attire, and she had no idea until she saw it!

A recent engagement caricature--so recent that none of their friends even knew yet, they were going to announce it with my drawing!

And finally, a Save-the-Date caricature. I hope they remember to mail me one!

And now for the "What did they eat?" portion of my blog post!

Well, for starters, Fletcher's Corny Dogs! Yes, I broke down and had one, even though I am not a hot-dog fan. It was good!

Late one night, Lorin took us into downtown Dallas so we could enjoy a non-fair meal at a real restaurant. He chose a place called the Iron Cactus, and he chose well! The drinks and food were delicious, and that's our waiter Kahlil with us in the photo. He was an amazing guy.

Mmmm...my tortilla soup and blood orange-basil mojito were the highlights of my experience with upscale Dallas cuisine. :-) The only upscale experience, that is!

Back at the fair, you can't call chicken-fried bacon upscale, but you can call it yummmmmy.

Lorin lent his talents to our booth on the one chilly day we had, and it was alot of fun working alongside him. One other benefit to having him there was that it freed up us four regulars to go do something Celestia and I have been pestering Paul and Vlad to do for years---get our photo taken at the "Olde Time Pictures" booth. This was the result:

Can't look at it without smiling!!

So goodbye, Big Tex, see you next year! Thank you to all the Texans who graced our booth!

And I'll be needing a manicure ASAP...