A look at my competition wall at the 2013 ISCA convention

For the third year in a row, I decided to do a theme wall at the #ISCA convention, held two weeks ago in St. Pete's Beach, Florida:

The convention itself is a crazy week-long, 24/7 extravaganza of caricature art and caricature artists. During the day, we participate in educational seminars and timed contests. In the evening, we all settle into one big ballroom (in this case, a huge tent) and draw each other, with the goal of creating a gallery of work created onsite, which we'll then vote on in various categories.
So, unless you're a caricature artist, you won't know any of the people depicted here in my STAR TREK parody…but believe me when I say, these things practically cast themselves. Who but Lar De Souza could be a Klingon? Or who but Lorin Bernsen as Spock? Actually, Lorin was my inspiration for the whole thing. As a friend, fellow TOS Trekkie and especially since he was our hard-working, outgoing President of ISCA, I wanted to do something close to his heart….thank you Lorin!!

Here are some of my subjects whom I managed to snag for a photo after the awards dinner. 

Captain Kirk is Chris Galvin, our new ISCA President. 

Beam me up, Scotty, for another year of anticipating our NEXT convention!

My ISCA con studio piece...the British Royal Family

Last November (yes, I really do have a backlog of stuff to catch up on blog-wise) I was considering what subject to do for my entry in the annual ISCA convention's studio caricature competition. In the news was Prince Harry's latest peccadillo...being photographed naked in his hotel suite with some ladies, in Las Vegas (who woulda thunk it???). Anyway, I thought it would be funny to do him as a paper doll, whose clothes would not be included...and with the famous Vegas sign covering his nether regions. Then his sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge was photographed topless, and I thought, ooooooh...how nice for me, now I get to draw her too, but that meant I might as well do the whole Royal Family as paper dolls, since it was also the Queen's Jubilee! The idea of depicting the Queen in an old-lady slip with her tiara and giant purse really tickled me. ;-)
Airbrush was my choice of medium for this project, which meant they were drawn in pencil and marker, then painted with my trusty Iwata.  This part was done in between customers at my boardwalk stand in August. When I got home, I scanned them into Photoshop for some painted touch-ups, then had FedEx Office print them on a glossy cardboard. The clothes (which were lots of fun to design) were printed on magnetic paper so they would stay on the paper dolls without tabs (I later affixed magnets to the dolls' backs.) Here is one stage of their creation...on the carpet in my studio, my first test printing:

Once I had them printed and cut out, it was time for a pretty backing paper. A royal blue glittery scrapbooking paper seemed just right. This part was done between customers at my booth at the Irish Festival!

Once at the convention, I still had work to do... constructing a little Buckingham Palace backdrop for them out of more scrapbooking stuff, adding stick-on rhinestones wherever appropriate*, and making stands for the dolls. I'd bought some black-and-white checkered packaging tape that suited my purposes very well (especially since it reminded me of the floors in Westminster Abbey which I'd visited earlier that year...). Finally I added a little "please dress us!"sign.

The display was organized at first...then people started to play with them! yay!

Someone put Prince William in drag...... :-D

Prince Phillip had been in very poor health for most of last year...if he had passed away after I made his paper doll I was going to put a "discontinued" sign on him!

The ISCA convention attracts some of the best caricature artists in the world and there were many, many entries in this category that were amazing. Imagine my surprise when my name was called for second place for best studio caricature!!

Thanks to Celestia Ward for the video!

First place was taken by Brian Oakes for a fantastic watercolor painting of Marky Mark...third place was won by Karel Opdebeeck for a massive sculpture of his brother Jan Opdebeeck (they are a family of amazingly talented artists).

My award was a painted scroll by master calligrapher (and friend) Jeff Redford. I am just as happy about having his handwork as I am about winning an award. :-)

Now what will I create for this year?????

*Kate got a rhinestone pasty. 

2015 ISCA convention #2

Ah, the camaraderie of caricature artists!

The ISCA convention flew by as it always does. The final evening is the awards banquet for which many of us dress up as only artists can...here's my roomie and I, about to make our way downstairs for a whole NIGHT of selfie-taking ;-)

See what I mean?

Outgoing ISCA president Nolan Harris is a snazzy dresser!!!  After dinner and an art auction, the awards found their way into deserving hands... 

This year's Golden Nosey winner, to no one's surprise, was Grigor Eftimov.

These are some works I particularly liked; Grigor's oils are on the far right.  

Here is one of his subjects, Kira Layli-Moore, who gets to keep that masterpiece:

Ok, as for what I did this year...my studio piece was a pen and ink of Benedict Cumberbatch aka Sherlock, along with Dr Watson and The Woman:

And for my wall, I decided to try something totally new for me: silhouettes!

...and two stray pencil sketches ;-)

I'd always wanted to try this, and had gotten a book on the subject at Half Price Books in Texas (a place we sadly don't have where I live, so it's a must-do excursion while working the State Fair). It turned out to be quite fun! Some of my subjects left the convention before the banquet, so I don't have photos of them with their silhouette, but here are  the ones  I DO have:

My two non-silhouettes were of some very amazing men I am proud to know:

The silhouette-cutter and the digital web-comic artist. 

I have a looooong way to go before I'll be able to cut anything like his work!

THAT'S ALL CUT OUT OF ONE SHEET OF PAPER!!!!

Lar did a silhouette of ME!

And Celestia and I both received sketches from Danielle Corsetto, author/artist of 

Girls with Slingshots.

Then it was off to the after-party!

Til next year (actually it's THIS year now---seven months away!)

ISCA Convention 2009-Part 1

This year's annual caricaturist convention, held in Sandusky, Ohio, was the official unveiling of the new name of our organization. Formerly the NCN (National Caricaturists Network) we are now the International Society of Caricature Artists, reflecting a worldwide membership of over six hundred artists. Two-hundred-forty-one of them came to learn, draw and socialize during the week of Nov 2-7 at an amazing resort hotel---the Kalahari, which features a huge indoor water park. However, that was a very small part of the experience as most of us were just too busy drawing each other to think of swimming. We finally did take advantage at the end of the week, after the competition voting and before the final banquet. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself...

The first morning features a communal breakfast, where we hear the latest from our board and get ready for an intense week of all caricature, all the time...

L-R Dave "Bippy" Boyer, speaking in front of board members Robert Bauer,(president) Glenn Ferguson,(v.p) and Lorin Bernsen,(secretary.

My roomates, the lovely and talented Anne Bush and Marlo Meekins.

First on the agenda was the Caricature 101 seminar, hosted by "Unca" Lar deSouza ( shown here drawing new ISCA treasurer, Ron Kantrowicz). He gave us some very interesting takes on his live-caricature process, especially since it was his first time giving a seminar. I should mention that to his surprise, it was SRO!
Next up was our own Tom Richmond, who was responsible for getting other MAD greats (incredible all-round talent Hermann Mejia, digital artist and cover artist extraordinaire Mark Frederickson, and jovial art-drector Sam Viviano) to be co-guest speakers along with him, thus making it a very Alfred E. Neuman kinda shindig!

Here's a view from my seat at Tom and Mark's presentation:

Below is an example of one of Mark's hilarious MAD covers. He works exclusively digitally now, as his previous airbrush work (which is equally fantastic)caused him some serious health issues.

Mark, Sam and Hermann were kind enough to pose for a photo with me at an evening reception for gold members of ISCA, of which I'm one. To caricature artists, these three gentlemen are celebrities of the highest order :-)

Below are all four guest speakers and ISCA president Robert Bauer during a question-answer session:

I've always been particularly drawn to Hermann's work. He has an painter's eye for likeness and humor, but his drawings (and sculptures) to me seem to be more than the sum of their parts. Below--look at the range of his abilities!

Hermann has a real fairy-tale story, too... MAD got one look at his portfolio and he was hired instantly, a non-English speaking young man from Venezuela. He called it luck, but I say he made his own luck.

Below: Sam spoke about the history and future of MAD magazine, and the part he's played in that as the current art director. Alfred E. has been around far longer than the magazine!

The ballroom opened after the first seminar and remained open and buzzing with activity 24/7, as artists claimed their spaces and began drawing each other. The goal was to have a wall space filled with work, created at the convention, of fellow artists, to be judged at the end by one's peers. Here are some views of that effort:






Above, my two table-mates ( and power-strip mates too!) Paul McCall and Patrick Harrington, who both worked exclusively digitally. I opted to do several different media, but I was very happy with my lone digital effort...photo of that to come.

Above: Amazing sculptress and friend, Johanna Veerenhuis, shows her husband in the Netherlands (via Skype) her amazing Sculpey rendition of fellow artist, Gwenda Saunders of New Zealand. Yes, we ARE international!

Below: As usual, Marlo is amazing...

This year my fiance John came along for the fun (he hasn't been able to come the last two years) so he was able to renew old friendships. Here he is being digitally drawn as a rock star by fellow wine-enthuisast Lar!

And here's the result!




Below: Hermann Mejia chats with last year's Golden Nosey winner, Jason Seiler. Jason gave a unique seminar, where he critiqued the work of artists who had submitted to him caricatures they'd done from photos. It was quite interesting to me, as I am getting more and more of that type of work myself.

Perennial seminar-giver Court Jones gave a combination informational/demonstrational class on human anatomy and why caricaturists should have at least a basic knowledge of it:

I learned as much from my friend Wade Collin's t-shirt ( who was seated in front of me at Court's seminar) as I did from Court!!

For the first time, I did not participate in the Likeness or Speed competitions, as I was more focused on drawing in the ballroom. However, I did sneak over to the room those competitions were held in, and was rewarded with a view of this rainbow over a bleak, flat Ohio landscape. :-)

If you're interested, these and many, many other photos from the convention can be viewed on my public Facebook fan page, under "Photos".