A family's caricature tradition

Yesterday's grad party gig was amazing for me in a way that doesn't often happen. In the course of doing live caricatures, many subjects will tell the artist they have a whole wall or room hung with a collection of caricatures. Usually said artist doesn't get to see that, but yesterday was DIFFERENT...

The caricature I did of this family's daughters...

is going to join all these others, done over fifteen years, in this stairwell on the way to the family room!

I was so excited to witness this, and see whose work I could recognize. With the family's permission, I took LOTS of pics to share here. They run the gamut from awesome to...no words. ;-)

First up, my hands-down favorite---an airbrushed one, on the left, that had the best likenesses to the two girls, of all the caricatures they had. They think it was done in Myrtle Beach, SC. 

Update: My eagle-eyed colleague Celestia says it's the work of artist Ben Schell, who travels the country doing airbrush caricatures at various fairs and other venues. Found a photo of him here.

On the right, well, I was taught that if you can't say anything nice.....;)

I will say that even bad caricatures can be funny...because they're so bad!

Above: These appealing caricatures were done by friend and local colleague Donna Needs, and were the only ones that I was sure were done by someone I personally know. 

Below: These two elegant drawings were done by another lady artist in our area (whom I have heard about for years, but never actually met) Barbara Thornton:

Below: two more that I thought were done very appealingly, from 2000 in Florida, with good likenesses and strong rendering.

Above: watercolors done in Disney World, 2003.

Below: Portraits rather than caricatures, can't read either signature. The charcoal drawing on the left has a particularly good likeness of Kelly.

Now for some theme park caricatures of a particular style:

My favorite above is definitely the Sea World one...the tiny bodies and sea creatures are hilarious.

Below: two more ocean-themed ones, with two totally different types of media:

Finally, a last theme park-y one. Gotta love neon-yellow hair. ;-)

So why don't I have a photo of the girls themselves to compare all these to? 

Because I took a video of their reaction:

...and forgot to get an actual photo, as I started drawing all their guests. By the end, they had changed and were playing volleyball, so I didn't want to bother them. You'll just have to take my word for it, that my caricature looks just like them! ;-)

Thank you to Katie and Kelly, and your family, again, for letting me share these!