Some favorite caricatures from the convention...

These are clickable to be viewed at a larger size...


This is where I created the pieces that went on....



My wall!!!



I was very impressed with these...



My good friend Rick was cruelly ( but hilariously) caricatured by Mikey Shields
(2nd place most humorous, btw)



Jert's wall ( Most Humorous!!) LOL



These are watercolor!!! ( by a Japanese artist...there is usually a large contingent from Japan at every convention.)



Another amazing Japanese artist did these!



Jeff by Zitman.



The BW work of a talented Japanese caricaturist whose name I am not sure of, and Johanna's 2D work.




The hilariously freaky work of Pat Harrington!



Emi Sato ( left) Glenn Ferguson ( Silver Nosey winner, right)



The work of Paul Moyse. Bravo!



Adam Pate's wall. That one of Tad Barney had me in stitches!



Colin Harris' wall. The bottom piece is a woodcut/print!



Jason Seiler's wall ( he won the Golden Nosey award!)



A Sculpey Emi Sato by Johanna Veerhenhuis!



The amazing Marlo Meekins' wall.


Lorin Bernson's wall. LOL.



Paul McCall's and Shinichi Miyachi's walls. Diverse talent everywhere!


Tel's wall

Nial O'Loughlin's wall. Humor and great likeness!

Con goings-on

A general view of the open-24-hours ballroom where we drew, and drew, and drew...

Steve Nyman of New Jersey joins Mike, Pat, and Niall at a drawing table.

Matt Zitman (Philadelphia, PA) and Jeremy Townsend (Atlanta, GA) say something that makes Jan Opdebeeck (Belgium) smirk.

Here's Jan with Marlo and I.

New friend Sean Gardener (Tampa, FL)whose blog and work I have admired for quite awhile now, works on an award-winning zombie caricature of Nate Kapnicky..

Caricature agents extraordinaires Tad Barney and Mike Hasson have a little sip at the con....(haha)

Court, Lorin, Debbo and Jeff have a pow-wow.

New friend Bert of fang-baby fame!!!!

A view of the voting at the Likeness Competition. Apparently, my caricature of the man with the hat was chosen for a local newspaper article about our convention, but I have not seen anything of it...

Court Jones held two Photoshop hands-on seminars, and I learned so much, as my basic PS knowldege is more advanced this year. He is in the middle of Chicago caricaturists Ellen Lustig and Roger Hurtado.

A view of the speed competition.

Colin did woodcuts!

Roger and I sat together so I could glean his airbush talent from his overspray fumes......

Adam Pate, Eve Myles, Paul McCall and Ellen Lustig during Court's seminar.

On NCN friendships...

Once again, I've returned from the annual National Caricaturists Convention, held this year in Raleigh, NC. The friendships I have made there over the years mean so much to me, aside from the learning opportunities.
Warning: Long post, as this con was so intense that I didn't find the time to blog while there; we literally went 20 hours a day at seminars and drawing each other.

My travelling companion and roomie, the beautifully strange Marlo Meekins. We always laugh our way through any situation, and she is very dear to me.
The first evening is always an icebreaker reception , where we catch up with old friends and make new ones...most of these fellow caricaturists can be found in my list of blogs on the right side.

Myself and Mr. Dotcom himself, Rick Wright...

New friends Terry Dunnett (Tel) from Australia, and Niall O'Loughlin from Ireland.

Good friend Pat Harrington from Northeast Philly and myself. We missed our significant others, John and Karin...

Myself with Okie Artist, Teresa Farrington, whom I just saw while working at the State Fair of Texas, and Johanna Veerenhuis, beautiful lsdy and sculptress from the Netherlands.

Myself with the neck from Texas, Lorin Bernson, hearty laugher who is now the secretary of the NCN.

It's fun to go out to eat with other artists from home, as of course, when you are working side by side, you can't socialize. Here I am with Martha and Colin Harris, John and Jill Sprague, and flat-headed Marlo.

This is another outing with Mike Giblin from Great Britain, Marlo, Niall from Ireland again, and Steve Silver. Steve is a noted character designer based in Los Angeles who teaches online for Schoolism.com, and is a rabid Beatles fan like me...

2008 National Caricaturist Convention

Every year, I spend a fun-filled week with almost 200 other caricature artists, and learn from them in so many ways. This year is no different! It's also being held within a reasonable driving distance, so I am able to take my compressor and airbrush with me. The above image is a digital painting by my friend Roger Hurtado, who still doesn't have a website or blog....

Here are the seminars over which I am drooling with antici-pation:

Jan Op de Beeck
"Draw Along with Jan" In this small workshop focusing on basic distortion, everyone will draw along with Jan, while he draws and comments on what he is doing and why. At the end, everyone will share and discuss their work.

Stephen Silver "Drawing from "LIFE" with Stephen Silver" Stephen will cover the importance of drawing from life and learning how to caricature what you see. Participants will draw from a live model, while covering some basic exercises that will be useful throughout everyone's drawing career.

Tom Richmond
"Caricatures in Humorous Illustration" In his seminar, Tom will cover how caricature skills can be applied to freelance illustration work.

Court Jones
"Digital Painting Workshop" Court's smaller workshop will focus on digital painting techniques as applied to caricature. He will show how to customize and set up Adobe Photoshop to produce natural looking paintings and illustrations. Then the group will paint a caricature in a classroom type environment with Court providing individual feedback. Each attendee must have their own laptops with Adobe Photoshop and Wacom tablet.

Jason Seiler
"Caricature 101" Jason will show samples of students' work from his Schoolism class, share his critiques, and show the progress his students have made. He will also do a caricature demo starting off with thumbnails and the stressing the importance of thumbnail sketching.

Joe Bluhm
"Advanced Caricature for the Live Artist" Joe will demonstrate live caricature techniques and discuss advanced theory. Helpful to both retail and party artists, he will cover everything from the one-minute sketch to a 15 minute caricature. This class is designed for those comfortable with taking their craft to a new tier of personal scrutiny and quality.

Meaghan Kent
"Legal Matters for the Artist" Meaghan Kent, associate attorney at Venable LLP, will lecture on legal issues that affect artists. Topics such as copyright law, trademarks, artist contracts, and issues regarding work for hire, artists' rights and royalties arrangements will be addressed. She will also discuss the nature and status of the current Orphan Works Bill being considered in the U.S. Congress. The last portion of her seminar will be reserved for Q & A, so come prepared with questions you would like to ask.

I'll be blogging from the convention once I get there!

Caricatures and College Football...

Every year, I am one of the side attractions at a local college's homecoming game. Usually, this outdoor event has nippy weather, so my easel and I are in a huge heated tent. This year, I started out there, but it was so warm, I was soon moved to the open area at the front where there was more air (thankfully, both for me and my line!)




This mother and daugher told me that I have drawn them every year, and that they are all framed and hanging up. (!)

On the way home, this balloon happened to be driftng over the late autumn fields...

Happy Hallowe'en 2008!

Graphite + Photoshop.
Neeeeeeeigh-eeeeiiiigh!

Weekend work...

My caricatures appeared at three festive events this past weekend: a wedding on Friday, (see previous post) a bar mitzvah on Saturday, and a little boy's 5th birthday party on Sunday! ( the only one for which I was actually present).

This huge hand-drawn caricature was used as a sign-in board at this young man's bar mitzvah.

This little boy and 24 of his closest friends were drawn live at a happy but hectic pace, so this in the only photo I was able to get.
Afterwards, I went home and watched the my hometown Philadelphia Phillies get within one game of a World Series championship. If they win tonight, this city will literally go nuts!!!

Uodate: The Phillies DID win the World Series, and Philadelphia did indeed go nuts with happiness! I was very proud of the team, as I drew caricatures there for four seasons, and became a baseball fan in the process. :-)

Digital wedding commission

Another happy couple getting hitched--today!
This was commissioned by the groom's mother, as a gift presented to the couple at their rehearsal dinner last night. The wedding colors are chocolate and latte, mmmm. This was done completely via email, and the client had it printed at Kinko's (I did provide written consent to have it printed for personal use.) I also recommended putting it in a 'signature mat'.
Congratulations, Carmella and Ben!


Update 10-27-08: I just received this email from my client!

Just wanted to let you know that everyone, especially Ben and Carmella, LOVED the caricature. I gave it to them at the Rehearsal Dinner, then we had it at Reception also, and everyone signed it for them.
Thanks again for all your work on it. I will recommend you to anyone I know who needs one.

Thank you!! :-)

Thanks to my mentors...

Thanks Celestia, Vlad, and Paul for putting up with an airbrush newbie. Your help and example inspired me to keep at it. Wait til next year!!!

Time in Texas has ended...for now

My Texas trail has ended and I am back home in Pennsylvania. What an experience!
In so many ways, my life has been enriched...new friends, new caricature techniques, different accents, different foods...and I plan on doing it all over again next year!
The last days were non-stop busy. I drew so many people, as did my colleagues!


This guy came back later without his daughter for a caricature of himself, by himself!(below)


The young lady above was drawn from a photo provided by her mom, whose son was drawn by me earlier in the fair...she was kind enough to send me a photo ( below) of her daughter with the framed piece later on! Thanks!


The gentleman above told me he was an artist who did inspirational comics, and had brought his portfolio to show me. So I had the idea of drawing him at his desk with a blank page for him to draw in his own cartoon!

This brother and sister had to be coerced into sitting for the caricature by their parents! They did like it more than this photo shows...:-)


I do enjoy drawing babies!