Afternoon wedding caricatures...

 A regal, elegant green-and-gold-decorated hotel ballroom was the setting for my wedding caricatures (after a nice cocktail hour in the wide hallway), But we will start with the gorgeous BRIDE and GROOM:

Aren't they an adorable couple?

As for me, I started off in the hallway adjoining the ballroom for the cocktail hour..

Due to the very large numbers of guests, I used my line-drawing-only caricature style, so as to get more faces done. Aside from great faces, some of the ensembles people were wearing were amazingly beautiful!

Then I went into the ballroom and drew at a VERY fast pace, so there aren't many caricature photos. These are from the last half hour when things wound down a bit:

Thanks to The Bash for putting us together, and to the groom for being a great client! best wishes!

Post-prom caricatures---it's been a long time!

 I love doing these crazy, late-night, high-school-senior events (as long as they aren't too far from home, anymore.)

I did one or two of them during the pandemic, but they were watered-down, masked events and did not quite have the high spirits of prior such events (which made me feel sad for the classes of 2020 and 2021). THIS one was a return to normality---decorated school, fun theme (Casino night!) bouncy houses, food, karaoke (which I was right across from, yay!) and MY CARICATURES! :-)

This school had actually paid their deposit to me in early 2020...so it took two years to get to the actual event!

Now for some caricatures of some VERY happy 'Class of 2022' kids:

Thanks for having me, NCS~

Wedding Caricatures in a Beautiful Barn!

 Barns have been a theme in several of my recent gigs, haven't they?

This one was a late-afternoon wedding reception of two lovely people, in an elegant, wood-paneled, modern barn:

Here are my two caricature set-ups for the event:

Check out the bride and groom's entrance (and you can hear the excellent live band!):

The bride and groom also asked if I could draw them in a kind of "last supper" themed caricature with their parents and grandmother...so this is what I came up with:

The venue was especially scenic, a tree farm in central Delaware, "Loblolly Acres". The cocktail hour was held on the patio next to the main barn on the left, and the ceremony happened in the open building to the right. 

These folks were definitely up for being caricatured!

These two had a cute reaction:

Here is a time lapse taken by a guest: (thank youuuuuu!)

And here are two couples whose reactions I caught:

Here is what the bride had to say the next day:

Emily. Thank you so much. You were such entertainment and everyone absolutely loved you. You made the reception a hit. I also so appreciate the photos. They are beautiful and I love seeing the authentic laughs and smiles of our guests. 

That's what it's all about! Thank YOU for having me and keeping me on til the end of the reception. I truly do love what I do. 

Silhouettes at Boot Barn Grand Opening

This past weekend, my scissors and I did a two-day grand opening event at a store new to Delaware--Boot Barn. I designed a rope oval with the Boot Barn logo for the backing cards, and the customers were as pleased as punch to get their very own silhouettes cut, as part of the festivities. There was also live music and refreshments.  Fun days!

Here are some of the results of my snipping: this was the first day....

And these were from the second day:

Milestone Birthday Surprise Party Caricatures!

This gentleman was given a surprise party yesterday, by his lovely wife, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Two crazy coincidences, connected with it, amazed me: the first is that, because I had to go the long way around to use a very lengthy ramp (I pull a small cart with my easel and supplies), I arrived at the door at the same time as my client and the birthday boy! Unbeknownst to me, they had pulled up and were entering, in the time it took me to walk around.... he even held the door for me and my cart! Of course, I knew he had no idea who I was or why I was there, so it was fine. I waited in the lobby while they continued in, to the cheers of their awaiting guests. The second coincidence was, during the festivities, my client graciously included birthday salutations to any guests who also had March birthdays. Well, my gigs are not about me, so of course, I did not mention I'm a March birthday girl also. At the end of the party, I asked the guest of honor whether his party was held on his actual birthday. He said no, it was a few days back....of course, it was my birthday too. They all sang happy birthday to me!!!!!!!  :-) What are the chances!!! (Yes I know, 1 in 365!!)

Thank you so much for having me, it was a lovely afternoon at the country club!

1st Birthday caricatures with a touch of the Irish!

 This little guy had a lucky St-Patrick's Day-themed birthday party, held at a very popular Irish pub/ restaurant, that included my wee caricatures! Shamrocks galore!

Didn't get many photos other than these, because at this event (which came to me via The Bash) my mission was to get every baby, toddler and small child drawn--so that all the guests would have a party favor. And I did in fact accomplish this, drew about 26 children in two hours. Yay me! 

I did of course dress for the theme :-)

This mural in the private party area really brought back memories of my days caricaturing in this stadium. 

Thanks for having me!!!!

College student caricatures--at Black Cultural Center!

 On Thursday afternoon, I headed to the anniversary party of Swarthmore College's Black Cultural Center, which has been going strong for 52 years on campus. The director had been caricatured by me at a birthday party last year, and she thought it would go over well with the students-- it did! :-)

I usually use 8.5 x 11 paper now for events where I know I will be doing mostly single faces and/or printing a logo. ( You can see that at the top of my papers). The shading is  all done with marker (Copic Sketch markers in black and gray tones) and only the backgrounds get done with Prismacolor Artstix.  

The building itself was historic, and very suited to its purpose! The walls were lined with giant photos of student groups in front of the mansion from years past. 

Kids had fun dancing it up after I finished drawing. :-D

Thanks for having me!!!

Windswept wedding caricatures!

On Saturday, I drove through a crazy March snowstorm complete with howling high winds to get to a wedding reception...but it was SO worth it! Look at this happy bride and groom!

It was held at a very cozy and charming wedding venue, ChickBerry Farms in Sussex County, Delaware.

 The groom had quite a logistical hiccup, in that he had picked up the wrong pair of pants where they'd been altered for him, and ended up with a pair that was entirely too large when he got into his final wedding attire! Luckily, there was enough time to retrieve the right pants, but OF COURSE I had to draw the droopy overlarge ones---so they can laugh about it forever after!

This was the first wedding gig where I've been unmasked since 2019! 

It was so great to be able to converse with guests as I drew them, and they could actually hear me! 

Here are some views of my time there:

Have to add, the DJ Sky Brady was marvelous! He acted as emcee, singer, comedian, and music-player. And did them all extremely well. He's the guy with the Rod Stewart hair and microphone in his caricature. ;-)

In my previous blog post, I mentioned that my little lightweight Ikea drawing table had finally bitten the dust. So for this gig, I reverted to my old French easel, which is actually better for lighting placement. They had a whole long table for me, which worked out because then I had room to lay finished caricatures for pick-up at reception's end:

 

Want to see a couple of reactions? Here ya go:

This afternoon, the bride emailed with feedback:

Hey Emily!

Thank you so much for the pictures, the kind words, 

and most of all - the AWESOME caricatures! Everyone was absolutely raving about you. 

You exceeded our expectations 100%. Thank you so much!!!

Thank YOU for having me, Jenna and Michael!!! I really love my job!