A snazzy, jazzy 60th birthday party!

One evening last week, I found myself having a fabulous evening…at a 60th birthday party for a beautiful, much-loved lady:

Her husband artfully arranged the whole thing, in a VERY cool restaurant, with live music by Dave Posmontier...and my caricatures. :-)

To start off with, the seating for my subjects was some of the BEST at any gig ever! A heavy, old-fashioned double chair, it was sturdy and pretty much unmovable. So many of my sitters plop down and then immediately drag the chair up so they are INMYFACE too closely--- and I have to nicely ask them to "skooch" back. Not at this event! 

Then, there was the music….some Beatle-y stuff in among the jazz: 

:-)

I drew for the whole four-hour party, and the restaurant staff thoughtfully brought me a plate of Moroccan Carrot Slaw while the birthday singing was going on. MMMMMMM!

Now for the caricatures!

 These two were a hoot, they chatted away the whole time I drew them, then really laughed when they got an eyeful. They were my first drawing of the night, so they had NO idea what to expect. I'm glad they loved it!

This guy said he had a pompadour----and I said, you have a seersucker suit too!

One word-EYELASHES!

CURLS!

OK, I need two words for this one: BUSHY HAIR!!!!!!!

and this one: CONTRASTING EXPRESSIONS!

It was an interesting night in a few other ways…

I saw the Heimlich Maneuver performed on someone who was choking on a piece of bread not five feet away from my easel. He was fine afterward, thank goodness. It happened in my peripheral vision, and at first I thought the lady was a chiropractor trying to crack the man's back! 

The birthday girl's guests included a relative who is a musician in a band I actually saw in concert….in 1983!! I have been to maybe five or six live concerts in my entire life (that's not counting hearing live music at gigs ;-) No, I didn't get to draw him and tell him. 

Finally, my client (who found me through my listing on Thumbtack.com) was such a gentleman, that he insisted on walking me to my car afterwards…and as we were chatting, we found out that he knows my cousin and her husband! It's a big city but a small world. THANK YOU for having me be a part of your wife's big celebration! :-)