More corporate party-style caricatures...

...done in my studio. Some of the photos were not easy to work from!

Back to work!

Well, it's back to work, but it's never really work to me. Drawing caricatures is always my pleasure...
Today's event was a lovely, low-key bat mitzvah celebration in a restaurant. The kids were very pleasant and I even had time to draw groups after I had done them all singly. This is one such group...the girl on the bottom right was drawn snapping her fingers-- *snap*-- but her hair obscured the drawing.

Final Evening at mini-con..

The final evening is spent enjoying each other's company at a dinner/awards ceremony, after voting for our favorites in several categories. This post is a shameless "Emily with caricaturist pals" display, but I have been so inspired by these people! They are all great friends as much as they are artists...

The best roomies ever! We laughed ourselves silly non-stop.
Myself, Kristen, Jert, (Funniest Caricatures winner) and Marlo.

Myself with Ed Steckley and Tom Richmond, both of whom had seminars that were very informative and helpful...thanks, guys!

We pose with Roger (Silver Archie winner) and Beast, two of the most obnoxious yet hilarious hecklers at the party competiton. Beast, no one tops THAT one-liner!

Myself with Court Jones ( Best BW Caricatures winner) and Debbo Burmeister..he gave THE workshop for me, how to make Photoshop do things I want it to, and not confuse the #$%^& out of me. Debbo was one of the organizers of the whole event, and tirelessly worked to make it soooo enjoyable. By the way, I won a great door prize from her--a 48 piece Prismacolor Artstix set!!

Finally, myself with Rrrrrick Wrrrrright. After this, it's back to the grindstone for us caricaturists! :-)

Other artists' work at the con...

Marlo Meekins

Kristen McCabe

Patrick Harrington

Roger Hurtado

Rick Wright

Jert

Colin Harris left, Joe Bluhm right

Taka Watanabe

My caricatures at the mini-con...

We were all given wall spaces to hang our work. Here's mine. Below are photos of the subjects with their particular drawing.

Colin and Martha Harris of Philadelphia...they received quite a few good ones from various artists.

Chris Galvin from Texas. I was happy with the way his silhouette framed his full-body caricature...

Kristen McCabe from MissouRAH. She's lots of fun and so talented with color!

Lorin Bernsen from Texas..another recipient of mutiple hilarious drawings at this con. Mine wasn't one of them....but he liked the likeness!

Here's Adrienne from Chicago, the lovely lady of the mini-con's "Silver Archie" winner, Roger Hurtado. His sagging award shelf really needs this latest award...anyway, Adrienne liked the joke ( it says "my eyes are up here").

Jert, from Atlanta, Georgia, called me a name when I gave him this drawing, but he was laughing when he said it!

Paul McCall, another first-time con goer, hadn't ever sat for his own caricature before. Lots of us made up for that!

Finally, Rick Wright of Baltimore,Maryland. He likes cheese.(dotcom)

More mini-con goings-on...

I've just gotten home from one of the most enjoyable NCN conventions I've ever attended. The camaradery of so many caricature artists together in one place is always inspiring, but this con had a particularly friendly atmosphere that everyone remarked on.
So, lots of photos are coming.
These are from the ballroom where we all drew night and day.
(I never left before 4 am all three nights, and each morning managed to get up at 9 for a free hotel breakfast! And they had a free happy hour, too!)

I'm hard at work on a digital caricature in this photo, taken during Joe Bluhm's workshop.

That's Tom Richmond leading his inking workshop. No one spilled any, to my knowledge!

Another group of artists drawing, drawing drawing

These are my new friends Colin Harris and his bride of two months, Martha..it was their first convention. People asked them if the con was their honeymoon!

Court Jones did a workshop on the technicalities of painting a digital caricature. I learned so much from this one! He drew John Goodman in an hour, who happens to be a St. Louis native.

Here's Colin, Marlo Meekins and Kristen McCabe at their marker-strewn work area.

This is a wider view of where I mostly sat for the duration.

Pat "Tori Amos" Harrington...I met him at my first con five years ago--he and his drawings only get screamingly funnier with time!

Marlo---I met her three years ago at a con, and she and her drawings only get more beautifully bizarre with time!

During the party-artists competition, we were heckled by our colleagues, with all the tired old questions/comments we hear way too frequently as caricaturists...
"Are you an artist?" "Why are you drawing a mustache on her?" "That doesn't look like him!" " You draw characters, right?" and worse....

There hasn't been any substantial snow here near Philadelphia, but St Louis got socked with it while we were there.

2nd day of NCN mini-con

The second day saw seminars by Okie Artist--Teresa Farrington, Ed Steckley, and the party-artists competition.

Okie discussed many creative marketing techniques for caricature artists, likening it to bubbles that pop and leave residue. The residue is your contact info and work images, blowing wherever, and you never know where a possibility for work may pop up as a result of your bubble-blowing!

Ed Steckley discussed the psychology of live caricature, and how to ge a subject to relax and show their true persona rather than a forced "Sears photo studio" smile...


The last two photos are from a new type of competiton at our conventions. We were given a half hour to simulate a gig, and were rated by our subjects on how entertaining we were...That's Pat Harrington on the left in the bottom photo ( check out his blog in my list!)
We are awaiting an inking workshop by Tom Richmond this evening.

First full day of NCN mini-convention

Busy day drawing and learning!

Marlo Meekins, myself ( Emily Anthony!) and Kristen McCabe...check out their blogs in my list...

Here's Tom Richmond demonstrating his Cintiq draw-on computer, using Photoshop...ditto about his blog in my list.

This was Joe Bluhm's workshop on drawing caricatures from photos using Photoshop; he also created his next podcast during this demonstration...and ditto again on the blog.

Artists warming up for the likeness competition, where we all draw from the same photo and then vote for the best.
We'll be drawing into the night...

Mini-convention!

Party-style sketches from photos

These quickly-drawn caricatures were done for a company that plans on giving them out at a service-recognition banquet...all the men were to be drawn in in tuxedos, and the ladies in evening gowns.
Only one came from a tiny, grainy snapshot. The others all came from nice, clear head shots.