Professional photography of my caricatures coming to life!

In February, my caricatures were part of the entertainment at a beautiful wedding reception held in a country club. The roving professional photographer, Heather Spicer, took some wonderful shots of the whole experience, both for artist and sitters! She recently shared them with me, and I will be returning the favor with a caricature of her and her family. 

My pencil hair-clip was bought at a street vendor during my visit to Chiang Mai, Thailand last year. It's just perfect for my gigs!

Thanks, Heather!

Being Caricatured in Bangkok...

Even though our trip to Thailand was a little over a year ago. I juuuuuust got around to making some videos. This one is of the day my son, my Other Half and I got a caricature in Jatujak Market.

O's Fans galore...

Another early-morning drive south for me ended up at the Baltimore Convention Center, for Orioles Fanfest 2014. I missed it the last couple of years due to visiting Thailand, but was able to get right back into the swing of it. :-)

Rick had his 'A team' drawing in an orange frenzy..

Yeah, I'm a terrible kid.

All seven of us were kept busy, and somewhat unusually, it wasn't predominantly kids--lots of couples got a caricature this year too:

Above: His parents told me it was a perfect likeness. I wasn't too sure!!!

Here's the scene on my hurriedly-returning-from-the-ladies'-room-break:

Before the festivities began, I found myself in the upstairs Starbucks, above which was a rather interesting, somewhat caricature-y mural of Baltimore scenery and citizens…

This was the second sunset I've seen in 2014 on the way to caricaturing:

Found this online the next day. The caption says the subject had "always wanted to be caricatured but had never gotten around to it" :-)

Play ball! (in two months anyway)

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.

No foolin'! Proposal by Caricature

I am so happy for this couple...he ordered a caricature from me while I was in Thailand, I created it and emailed it to him (and it looks like he had it printed it on canvas!) he used it to propose on Valentine's Day, (they had someone pretend to draw it where they were, in Mexico) and she said YES! Here is a beautiful photo of them. :-) Congratulations, Michael and Michelle!

Two more caricatures I did in Thailand...and some I didn't.

My subjects weren't Thai, however! This one is of a gregarious British lady author, whom I met at the home of one of my son's yoga students in Bangkok. She had personality busting out of her seams...

This one is of a young Iranian boy who lives in my son's apartment complex, also in BKK. I actually drew him and his younger brother, (not shown) who literally couldn't sit still for two seconds--so I wasn't entirely happy with how his drawing turned out. I may re-do it from his photo. 

Now for the caricature sightings. This lonely little marker drawing was hanging in a mall in Chiang Mai, with no artist nearby. 500 baht is about $15.

Here's a pic of my son (phone glued to his ear ;-) in front of another art studio in the same mall. All of the artists were working on this type of drawing--super-rendered, extremely photorealistic portrait stuff. 

Lastly, this one was displayed in a kids' art center, also in Chiang Mai. It was Monday, so they were closed. Wonder if it is one of the teacher's works?

More Thai artists...these were the hi-tech ones promoting Samsung

One afternoon during my recent trip to Thailand included a stop at a huge mobile communications show, held in Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok. It was amazing how many vendors there are in this industry---and one of them was utilizing the talents of real live artists...

Samsung has held this type of event in cities all over the world, to show how their Galaxy Note tablet can be used for drawing. I have plenty of colleagues who've done this gig here in the US. The pay was not commensurate with what professional digital artists usually get, but as usual, one can profit and learn from ANY experience...

Like most things in Bangkok, it was VERY crowded:

Here are some of the completed digital drawings:

Portraiture and anime predominate.

At this event I also had a cool Beatles t-shirt sighting! :-)

And this was too cute for words:

A little artist-ambiance (visual AND musical) from Thailand

Recently I posted about a street artist we chanced upon while visiting Chiang Mai, Thailand...and just now, chanced upon the video I took that night. The live music was coming from a Thai guitarist... I wonder if he was singing phonetically. Everyone loves the Beatles!

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!

Marriage Proposal Caricature---she said YES!

On this past Valentine's Day, this young lady went out to dinner with her man--and got a big surprise!

I just heard from my client, and he said they are in Mexico---and she said yes!!!! Chalk one up for creative proposing with caricatures! :-)

I did this cartoon-style digital commission in Thailand, it made me sweat when trying to email such a large file to him. We definitely take for granted our internet speeds here in the US. 

Another street artist in Thailand

This artist, in the night bazaar at Chiang Mai,  had a display of large graphite drawings that were quite detailed...this is the one he was working on when we stumbled upon him:

He's using some sort of magnifier to look at his reference as he draws. I would bet that there is a grid over the photo and possibly had been one on the drawing, as it seems to be a virtual copy of the photo...

 He was also dipping his pencil point in a solvent, probably alcohol, to get the rich fluid darks in his drawing. The next night we happened by and this drawing was in plastic, on the right, with his other finished works. Many of the vendors at this marker did not have prices shown, so I have no idea what he was asking.

He had a crowd watching. I know that feeling!

Caricaturists in Chiang Mai's Sunday walking street

Well, there were one or two doing caricatures in a long row of portrait artists...

A walking street in Thailand is just what the name implies; a normally busy street is closed to traffic and vendors are set up along both sides. However, in this case, the artists were in the middle...and the crowd was SO thick even I would have been nervous of being bumped by passersby...

I don't know why Mr. Bean and Obama seem to be the perennial favorites for caricature samples in Thailand...below is a closer look:

Here are most of the artists in action:

 Since almost all the artists were busy doing portraits, I guess it's because that's what sells more.

 Above: This artist certainly caught her expression...

Below: This guy was doing a watercolor caricature from someone's phone:

This is a peek into one art supply box....those Mars Lumograph pencils are popular. I bought a handful for myself and they are nice, capable of a big range of tone.

Below: This sample depicted the subject as a ladyboy! I wish I'd get calls for that here...Thailand is much more comfortable with having a "third sex"than other parts of the world...

If I am interpreting the sign correctly, a live sketch is 200 baht (about $6) and from a photo 300 baht (about $9). Below: This is the view when we entered the walking street, you can see how packed

 with humanity the center is...

I like more elbow room when I draw live!!