Happy 4th of July from George and Barack!

I decided to have some fun drawing the Father of our Country along with our current President....

Both of whom have presided over great changes for the American people. :-)

This little sketch took about a half hour, and is 2.5 x 4 inches. I am liking drawing in miniature lately.

Caricaturist meet-up

The doldrums of January are a good time to enjoy downtime from gigs...so last night the Other Half and I went to a caricaturist meet-up at Dave and Buster's in Philly, organized by colleague John Sprague. 

First we eat (and drink), see familiar faces and meet new ones, and then we DRAW.

Here's my output for the evening. :-)

And these are of me...by old and new friends: 

L-R Cartoony me by Terry Laban, NASTY me who draws NICE by Patrick Harrington (I hate you, PAT ;-) ( just kidding, I LOVE it) and cuuuuute me by Mike "Shorty" Robinson.

I'm glad I wore my favorite-est hat.  

Here's some pics of the action:

Shorty and Pat dood-oodling away. Pat is wearing his characteristic smirk. 

Chris Chua, Terry, Debbie Schafer and Shorty.

Sean listening intently. 

Below: Ali Thome, she of the sultry voice in the new caricature podcast "It's Supposed to be Funny" 

and Julie Borysowski, whom I used to work alongside at Phillies games way back in the day...

John and Pat,  two of my oldest friends in the caricature biz: 

 Thanks for pulling this together, John!

PINK caricatures and commentary

This past week, the subject at Traditional Caricature Art Contest on Facebook was pop star Pink (real name Alecia Moore, and like me, she hails from the Philly suburbs---but all similarities end there. She is a gymnastically inclined, powerhouse singer with cutting-edge looks.)

I did a #pencilsketch and submitted it. To my surprise, it generated over 100 likes and some interesting commentary on whether or not it was a caricature or an illustration. 

You can read how the conversation went above (click to enlarge), and it was so nice that everyone's opinions were respectfully given. It's not always a pleasant topic among caricaturists: those who prefer strong exaggerations often feel that milder ones are not true caricature, and the ones who don't heavily exaggerate often look on wildly distorted, out-there caricatures as lacking likeness. Of course, the truth is that masterpieces come in both types. Click here to see the three winners of the Pink contest. 

I've always veered toward the less exaggerated end of the #caricature spectrum. My goal is to come up with the essence of a person within an enhanced likeness, and prefer my drawings to be rooted in reality. A portrait with the volume turned up, as I mentioned in my comments above. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the work of my crazier colleagues!

Also, the level of caricature in a caricature ( hah) is something that is hard to judge unless it's part of a comparison. I've been told in various caricaturist settings that I am both the "meanest" and the "nicest" caricaturist there… :-)

Justin Bieber, Inmate of the Year…not

The smarmy, entitled brat/pop star smiled for his mugshot:

And his ProActive isn't working, either.

Kate Gosselin, Mother of the Year….not

My sketching fingers decided to depict this train-wreck yesterday…

Taking her thirteen-year-old twins on live breakfast television to "speak out" on their"normal, regular" lives definitely backfired on Kate Gosselin. A few years back, I did a cover caricature for a Jon-and-Kate+8-criticism blog  because I'd seen the show...and my opinion was that Kate Gosselin was abusive to both her husband and children. The show seemed to be thriving on that more than the parents-of-multiples angle, which really bothered me. It seems that KARMA is finally catching up with her now…it seems like those girls sabotaged the interview as best they could.

It's also really interesting to me that she has used plastic surgery/hair extensions so excessively that she has ended up looking closer to a middle-aged Barbie doll---and even less like her young half-Korean daughters than she ever did. 

Scandal in New Jersey!

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will cross THAT bridge when he comes to it…

Here's a link to my Vine of this #pencilsketch #politicalcartoon from start to finish:

https://vine.co/v/hLpKqizPDgA

Welcome 2014! Adele, etc.

2014 has arrived and with it, a perpetual resolution (amongst several): to remember to sign my artworks with the correct year!

I've finished several caricature commissions already since New Year's, but can't share them yet, so this is a look at a current little project of mine: 

Bodacious torch singer Adele is the face of the week on Caricaturama Showdown 3000. This FB page is one I used to frequently post on, back when it first started several years ago, but haven't done so for quiiiiiiite awhile. Why not? Well, each artist is free to use whatever media they like, whether it be traditional or digital. I like to use both, but digital became CS3K's predominant mode (and one of my friends referred to it as "a rendering contest"). Some of the digital caricatures entered, frankly, looked like nothing more than photo-manipulated…photos. There was much controversy, on and off, as artists accused other artists (justly so, IMHO, in some cases) of painting on top of stretched photos, after using the "liquify" tool in Photoshop. Well, contention between artists is sad, so I lost interest in going there. When I did have time to do extracurricular art, I posted in Traditional Caricature Art Contest, where digital is an absolute no-no.

When I saw Adele was the current face on CS3K, though, I decided to see how things were going there. She's a fun one to caricature (this was done last year and ended up in my portfolio) so I opted to have another go.

First, I did a pencil sketch and posted that, (89 (!) "likes" at the moment, which is astonishing to me) then continued on to paint her using Procreate on my iPad, thus making it digital. Truth be told, I am a rather bigger fan of traditional media than digital. I nearly always sketch in pencil first and scan it before completing a digital commission, and I still have not joined the 'live-digital-caricature' movement. I need to remedy that. :-) There's no organic original with digital, but of course it is far better suited for the fast pace of today's illustration needs. So call me a fence-sitter! 

My friend Celestia Ward, who isn't afraid of public speaking, just did a talk on using social-media-as-an-artist to a group in Las Vegas. My Adele made it into one of her talking points. :-)

Now I just have to finish her, among all the other January-type things I'd like to do...studio-sorting, website-revamping, and general catch-up stuff. My last two Januarys were spent in Thailand, so it's way overdue.

Trying out Procreate on my iPad...Viven Leigh

I added the Procreate app to my iPad and am liking it! This started as a pencil sketch of Viven Leigh that I photographed and imported into the app, then painted over. The reference only exists as a BW photo, so the colors are my own choices...

This is how Viven appeared in a pre-Scarlett movie role, as Madeleine in 1937's Dark Journey.

Redrum pencil sketch

Traditional Caricature Art Contest: this week it's Jack Nicholson. Click to see a Vine clip of my sketch.

More quickie pencil sketches for my portfolio...

I've been doing some pencil sketchin' for the usual online caricature groups...mostly pencil work, with varying levels of exaggeration. These all take under an hour to do.

This one needs no exaggeration! It's done in Ebony pencil.

This one is graphite and Prismacolor pencil: the young Nina Simone.

 Juno! This sketch is veeeeery small, I wanted to see how tiny I could go.

Another version of the new Pope. The first photo of him on the balcony made it seem as though his face was quite round, but now that I've seen more images of him, I think he has a droopier face. 

Jack Black, who has quite a distinctive look, kind of like Johnny Depp Lite. This one is pencil with some digital watercolor on top.

Billie Holiday...this one is all Mars Lumograph EE pencil. I've found that they are no fun to sharpen...they crumble. :-(

So I switched to markers for this last one:

Bye bye, Pope Benedict...

Hope Google Translate got the Latin for "I'm goin' to Disney World" correctly!
Done with Mars Lumograph EE pencil and a few blue Prismacolors, for Traditional Caricature Art Contest on FB...

James Dean and the elusive EE pencil

One of the coolest souvenirs (okay, several  of them) that I brought back from Thailand was the Staedtler Mars Lumograph EE pencil. The majority of street artists there were using them and I am a magpie for art supplies...
It has a nice range of tones--including a very rich black-- depending on your hand pressure and it lays down nicely. Here is a sketch of this week's subject for Caricaturama, done with it:

In doing a little research on the internet, I found out that the EE might only be sold in Thailand and *may* be the same item as the 8B pencil. There are many listings online to buy all the other grades of Lumograph  pencil, from HB on up, but the EE seems to be very hard to find. Unless you're in

 a stationary store in Bangkok!

Sketches for Caricaturama, etc..

While I was out of the country, I didn't really keep up with the weekly online caricature competitions, but a few subjects were just too fun to resist....
Bruce Willis for the forum at caricature.org done in Mars Lumograph EEE pencil, which I am really liking:

Paris Hilton, (Mar Lumograph again) Adrien Brody ( Ebony pencil) and Marilyn Manson (Microns) for Caricaturama and/or Traditional Caricature Art Contest....

There was a recent heated discussion on Caricaturama pertaining to the "cheating" of some digital artists by using photo manipulation as a basis for their caricatures,  (that's a subject for another post, though!) which resulted in some calls for preliminary sketches to be shown before a final digital work. My works for these competitions usually never get past the sketch stage!

FB caricature pages

Weekly caricature competitions have sprung up on Facebook like weeds...and I haven't had time to participate in any of them for ages. There used to be only Caricaturama Showdown 3000, which I regularly entered in the past. My motives were A. practice and B. having samples for my portfolio. One colleague of mine, at the recent ISCA convention, entered the portfolio competition--- and his consisted only of pieces he'd done for Caricaturama.
So, now there is Bookface Caricature contest, Awkward Faces, Traditional Caricature Art contest, etc. etc. etc. Some pros around the world enter these with very elaborately rendered pieces, and I always wonder how they find the time...and there are also plenty of newbies trying out the artform and hoping to learn something.
Anyway, since my portfolio was nonexistent this year, it's back to doing small sketches for these competitions. I don't want to spend more than an hour on any of them. Here are a few recent ones.

Pencil sketch-Rosario Dawson

Marker sketch-Fred Astaire.

Another pencil drawing--Ella Fitzgerald. They are all going in the same sketchbook. 

Doodling in Bangkok #2

Another day in Bangkok, another sketchbook...this book fit in my (horrors!) fannypack...

Home from Asia and Europe!

My blog has just had the longest hiatus in its almost-five-year existence: my intrepid Other-Half and I went on a month's journey to Thailand, with a four-day jaunt to England tacked on at the end. :-)
My son happens to live in Bangkok, which is about as far as one can get from Philly without being on the way back. It was my first time overseas (unless you count the Caribbean) so I was very excited about:
A. seeing my son after a year and a half
B. seeing sights, eating exotic dishes, and soaking up foreign climes
and
C. finding art/caricature related stuff to share here.
Here's the Other Half, and my son and I, in a water taxi along one of Bangkok's many canals.

So to begin sharing what (little) drawing I actually did, or what I witnessed, on the looooong flights there I doodled Miss S. Germanotta from a magazine. Luckily, I like to do tedious crosshatching sometimes, because there was plenty of time for it:

There's plenty more to come, from street artists to medieval gargoyle faces, once I find the relevant photos among the 18 GBs I took! (video too.) But first I have to get ready for a gig tomorrow---my last one was on February 5th, which may have been my longest break from THAT in a loooong time too!

First thing I've signed 2012 to...

Doodled this of some strangers early this week. Everything I do always turns out somewhat caricature-ey! And I made sure the lady never got a gander at my sketchbook...

From Emily's Archives #5: Ringo in pencil

From a sketchbook I used intermittently in the 1980's:

It's from about then because it also had sketches of my infant daughter who was born in 1986.
And I didn't make his hideous great hooter big enough!

Caricaturama-Liam Neeson

Another week has flown by without much time for anything more than a quick sketch--this past week's Caricaturama subject was actor Liam Neeson. I went with black, white and blue Prismacolor pencils on gray Canson paper. He's proven to be a popular subject, at the moment there are more than 160 entries!

Caricaturama-Bill Cosby

I haven't had much time lately for Caricaturama's weekly challenge, but I just had to do The Cos!

It's not digital for once... I had a hankering to draw something with Prismacolor pencils and markers on a piece of pearlescent pinky-grey Canson paper. Now that I'm looking at it, I wish I hadn't made that first "H" so big, but-- oh well.