Brits in Bangkok..and it's a small world

At a yoga class of my son's, held in a private home in Bangkok, I met more of his wonderful students/friends. This lovely English lady and her daughters were caricature fans, so I asked if they'd ever been drawn before. The younger daughter said, "Yes, at Alton Towers!" Thinking the artist might have been one of my friends (Mike, Mickey, or Mick :-) I asked her if she still had it, and she retrieved it from her room to show me. It turned out to be none of the male artists, but my friend Liesbeth, from Belgium, who spent a summer working there!

I'm holding Liesbeth's drawing. They're holding my drawings.

After class, (my son took no mercy on his mother) I drew them and their dogs! And we chatted about various mutual likes (the Beatles and Queen being top of the list ;-) I'm so lucky to have my vocation be what it is, which allows me to meet such cool people!

Below: a fuzzy Iphone pic of myself and Liesbeth at the opening reception of the 2011 ISCA convention.

SMALL WORLD!!!!

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!

Caricature-spotting in Bangkok #3

These were displayed in an art/frame shop in MBK mall in downtown Bangkok:

600 Baht is equivalent to about $18. These seem rather detailed for such a low price, but Thailand is well-known for its bargains. The way it works is, an artist takes your photo and you come back several hours later for the drawing...
Here's one that was hanging on the wall:

Finally, some artists were busily painting, scumbling and glazing away here...

Bangkok marker aisle

While I was visiting Bangkok recently, of course we went shopping and  of course I found myself in the art supply section of a department store:

Wow!! This is complete heaven to peruse!

Here's what I bought, I wish I'd bought more:

This caricaturist sits for a caricature...in Bangkok

Usually, I'm the one to be found drawing caricatures---but not this past weekend. My son, my Other Half and I found ourselves in Jatujak Market in Bangkok, one of the biggest (35 acres, thousands of vendors and stalls) open air markets in the world. Of course, in a selling atmosphere that large, you're bound to find a few caricaturists plying their skills...

My Other Half, myself and my son waiting to get a caricature

We chanced upon three caricaturists in a large tent, along with a freehand henna tattoo artist.  Many people, mostly tourists,  were patiently waiting their turn, seated in little child-sized chairs, with smells of tantalizing foods of every description wafting over us.

The word "cartoon" was shown more prominently than "caricature" in their display... they didn't seem to go in for much exaggeration...and they use a pencil I wasn't familiar with, a Mars Staedtler EE, a nice, soft, very dark lead. 

We decided to go with this artist, Mr. Kang, based on his self-caricature:

We watched him draw the people ahead of us, a cute Thai same-sex couple. He made the girly one carrying the boy-ey one in her arms!

When it was our turn, my son, who is fluent in Thai, asked which one of us the artist wanted to draw first (we all wanted to be in the same drawing...I know, I know, more people are harder!  But the pricing was by the person, so he wasn't losing money for squishing us all in. And that's without saying anything about how difficult my face is to draw, or so I've been told ;-) 

We decided not to put him on the spot by telling him that I shared the same job description.

He wanted to draw me first:

Then my son:

And finally my Other Half:

While my son was sitting there waiting, he gave the artist plenty to work with for a body situation:

(don't try this at home, kids, he's a yoga teacher)

So this is the end result!

Tee-hee! I really enjoyed his take on my son. And I thought it was quite a good stab at me...except he gave me my hair color from ten years ago :-) As for my Other Half, we found the pot belly to be funnily exaggerated!! :-) We finally let on that I was an artist too, and I had my son tell him about the International Society of Caricature Artists...and gave him a card with my info and ISCA's. To my knowledge, there are no Thai members; I hope he looks us up!

The other hilarious thing about this drawing is that my son's foot seems to be touching the top of the wat (Buddhist temple) and that is a big "no-no" in Thai culture... the foot touching anything, is disrespectful. Or maybe it's just perspective!!!! :-)

ขอขอบคุณคุณ (Thank you) Mr. Kang!

Doodling in Bangkok #2

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

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:

Little kids at a bon-voyage party in Bangkok

One of my son's yoga students and her husband invited us to a going-away party at their condo in downtown Bangkok. So I brought my clipboard, markers and artstix (I always travel with those), bought some copy paper and dove right in with the kids (caricaturistically speaking :-)

The little ones were really interested! (Photos by George)

 I was a little out of my element, as I didn't have bags for the drawings, or my easel and other paraphernalia, but it went well! I may even have sparked some interest in my craft. :-)

I drew from phones for parents whose kids happened to be elsewhere that day...

 It was really neat to meet so many people from all over the world at one little gathering. There were Aussies, Brits, Japanese, Americans, Russians, Belgian, and French. We even met a couple who lived near where my Other Half grew up! Thank you for having us, Yulia and Ben!

Expats in Bangkok

Expat = a person living in a country not their own, whether permanently or temporarily. Bangkok is such a mixing pot of cultures and nationalities that expats have their own social/business groups here. My son and I attended a cocktail party for one such group, and of course the pen and paper came out... ;-)
This lady is a native of Sri Lanka, and the gentlemen below is from France.

                                               My son displayed what yoga can do for a person as well!

                He was from Pennsylvania!!!!!

Thai sushi surprise!

I was in the middle of this mom-dad-baby caricature when I heard their family members behind me speaking Thai, which I am a teensy-bit familiar with--because my son George lives in Bangkok. (When he was home this summer, he frequently practiced his vocabulary.) I told them about my son, and they were so happy to hear how much he loves their homeland. I ended up drawing not only the triple, but also the parents-and a brother and his daughter, too.


My fiance John chatted with them while I drew. They ended up inviting us to their sushi restaurant outside of Dallas, Suzushi. The next night, Celestia, Lorin, John and I got off from the fair a bit early specifically to go have a fantastic sushi dinner. It truly was delicious, memorable and so nice to know that the art of caricature brought us all together! Thank you Pat, Herb, Harp and your whole family!




If you're in Dallas and you like sushi, you should go and have their GYU roll--filet mignon on rice. The last photo is John and I about to devour their Halloween roll...fantastic!!!
Um, I'm never eating a corny dog again!

Caricature-spotting on Koh Samui #1

During my recent trip to Thailand, I didn't just get to see Bangkok--we travelled (by night train, bus and ferry) about 500 miles south to the beautiful tropical island of Koh Samui. The most popular beach town is Chaweng, with a thriving main street full of local Thais and tourists from all over the world. One shop had this displayed out front---it looked like a combination of marker and watercolor:

  This particular artist had pieces in a couple of shops nearby:

Many of the small art shops we passed had painters busily working on large canvases of popular subjects; it seemed to be a tie between traditional Thai art and...the Joker. ;-)

Ok, gotta throw in a photo of the absolutely beautiful beach here...