Happy Halloween!

A page from my sketchbook, with a little digital polish....

Two caricatures with their owner...

I finally got a photo of my daughter Charlotte with her two recently-drawn caricatures: one by the wonderful Jan Opdebeeck ( colored pencil) and one by yours truly (digital).

It's that time of year.....

...Halloween!
This is an Ebony pencil drawing I did a few years ago, of a character from one of my favorite movies...long live Eye-gor!

Sweet 16 party

Last night, I drew color caricatures at a lavish sweet-16 party with an Evening-in-Paris theme. (My beret was completely appropriate here!)
Here are some of the teens:

Revised Hillary and Obama

My friend Paul Moyse (his blog is in my list) pointed out to me on our NCN forum that Hillary's and Obama's faces lined up in an uncomfortable tangent. So I played around with different backgrounds and perspectives...(and thanks for the constructive criticism, Paul!)

I'm still not sure if this is the final version, but seeing the process of other artists' creations has helped me in the past, so that's why I am sharing mine.

Finished--(I think)-- Hillary and Obama!

It's mostly finished, anyway. I may want to think of a humorous caption for one or the other of these two, or blur Obama a bit as he is behind her, but this is what I have at the moment. Photoshop is finally fun for me, now that I am more adept with it.

Preliminary digital sketch

I have been learning from Joe Bluhm's digital podcasts on Photoshop (link is in my list). Thanks, Joe!

Midweek, mid-day gig...

An enterprising big corporaton nearby included my caricatures as part of their annual United Way drive. During their lunch break, people donated whatever they wished in a big jar behind me, which filled up quickly. It was a very relaxed, dressed-down event, held in their cafeteria, with the next face arriving as I finished the previous person...
One funny little side note: two of the ladies who saw me at the women's convention I did on October 12, happen to work at this company! They came up and were exclaiming what a small world it is.... :-)

Saw possibilities in an unfinished sketch from the con...

At the recent NCN convention in Reno, I began a marker-and-artstix drawing of amazing caricature-sculptress Brooke Howell. She looks entirely different every year and therefore is always a popular subject. Sadly, my sketch didn't see the light of day again til today, when inspiration struck...so here it is, Brooke!

Her blog is in my links list amd her website is
www.brookehowell.com.

My daughter loved her birthday gift, happily!

Another 'outdoors-gig then indoors-gig' Saturday...

This breezy-but-nice afternoon I arrived at a local college's Family Day to find this:

That's the first time a client ever did this-- printing my self-caricature from the agent's site as well as spelling 'caricature' correctly! :-)
Here are some of the afternoon's faces...


My evening was spent at a cozy little church function. This gentleman wanted a caricature to put at the front of his school bus!

My younger daughter commissioned me (hah)

My 16-year old daughter, Madeline, got a look at her sister's caricature (previous post) in its frame, ready to be wrapped for Charlotte's birthday, and asked, "Who did that?"
I didn't know whether to be insulted or complimented! ;-)
At any rate, she had her own project she wanted my help with-- a customized t-shirt for her "Spirit Day" Homecoming festivities at her high school.
So, last night at midnight, she "supervised" while I painted her school's mascot on a t-shirt. The puffy paint was still tacky when she left for school this morning...but she was happy with it. No one else will have her shirt!

Finished!

Can't wait to see how she likes it!

Progress on Charlotte's birthday gift...

Here is today's progress on my digital painting of my daughter and her friend. Sometimes it is easier to see where changes are needed after not looking at it for awhile (since last night, anyway!) Specifically, I worked on Charlotte's nose and eyes, and Anna's chin. Once satisfied with the pencil sketch, I re-scanned it and began painting! It's about half done at this point.

I'm my own client for this one....

My daughter Charlotte will celebrate her 21st birthday this weekend. I hope she doesn't check this blog, or she will see the beginnings of her gift from me!!!

This is she, with her best friend Anna. They have been BFFs since kindergarten...
It's going to be a digital piece, so I can give one to Anna next month on her birthday, too.

Sweet 16 party

This afternoon I had the pleasure of drawing at a young lady's 16th birthday party. Her family and friends were quite a close-knit, fun-loving bunch. While I was at one end of the room caricaturing away, at the other end people were singing karaoke and dancing their hearts out!

Two-gig day

My wardrobe choice this morning was difficult, because I had two very different (one outdoors, one indoors) caricature gigs to do--and no time to change in between! The first gig was a college football homecoming game, and the second was a department store special sales event. I ended up wearing khakis and a nice blouse, and only having to change my shoes from sneakers to dress shoes...
Here are some of today's faces!




This boy was festooned with balloons from one of the most creative balloon twisters I have ever seen. He worked steadily alongside me all afternoon, captivating even the teens and college students in attendance. We had one crowded corner of the tent!

I never did find out what these girls' names really were!

Women's Conference

This evening, for five hours, I drew middle-aged ladies. They are the one group
(aside from teenage girls) that I am never sure, when I present their caricature, if they are going to scream with laughter or shudder in dismay...
these ladies were game, as long as I didn't draw their teeth!!



I worked this gig with a fellow artist, Rick Wright, whom I usually see at Baltimore Orioles games. He's an NCN member who didn't get to go to the con, so I bent his ear with stories about it during our break, and we took these two photos of ourselves....


Rick's website is:
www.cartoonsbyrick.com

Sketch for Hans and re: Sam G's blog

My reciprocal sketch for fellow caricaturist Hans Deconinck:

It's being emailed to him pronto--hope he likes it as much as I enjoyed mine by him! Check out his blog...and Sam's too, (both are in my list of blogs). She's got an extended post about her experiences at the NCN convention, which included two awards. Hooray! Plus more about her buttoncatures!

Jan's workshop

At last week's NCN convention, Jan Opdebeeck offered small (12 students) hands-on workshops every day. As an indication of how popular he is as a teacher, sign-ups were held on the first day of the con at 8 am--I arrived at 8:05 and just barely made the list for the last workshop!
The topic was "Caricaturing from Photographs" and we were to bring pictures of subjects to work from. Many of us brought our laptops with photos we'd taken of colleagues, as I did.
First we looked at selections of Jan's, and discussed whether they were an appropriate photo or not, then whether it was an easy or difficult exaggeration. Then we started to draw! Here is Jan with Sam Gorrie and Big Al.

Here are three of my efforts in class. I brought them to a higher degree of finish since returning home, and plan on coloring them in Photoshop.



Thank you Jan!

A pleasant surprise!

My dear friend Sam directed me to the blog of a Belgian colleague, Hans Deconinck, to find that he had done digital caricatures of us, using Painter X software.
Wow-- here I am:

Here's Sam...

Here's Marion, winner of the Bronze Nosey at last week's convention...

Apparently he is a big fan of our blogs, (where he got the reference photos of us) and I am certainly a fan of such beautiful digital work. It's also no coincidence, since I came home armed with skills learned both Photoshop-wise from Court, and exaggeration-wise from Jan, that I am also working on some caricatures of colleagues. However, they aren't fit to post yet.
Thanks Hans!!! (Check out his blog, in my Links list).

Studio piece entry

Here's what I entered in the NCN convention's studio piece competition...

The top two spots were won by current and former Nosey winners, so competition was pretty fierce. She does make a good portfolio piece!

NCN Awards Banquet

Another fantastic convention has drawn to a close. The banquet was the emotional high point, as many deserving winners received awards. I am proud to count quite a few as friends. Congratulations to the Nosey winners,and everyone else who won!
Here's our traditional "girly pose" we do every year, in our finery!

Sam Gorrie, Marlo Meekins, myself, and Celestia Ward

A view of our lovely and talented table: (from left) Rob Sundin, Lar DeSouza, Celestia Ward, Leesbat, George Anthony, Sam Gorrie, and Marlo Meekins...

My friend and mentor, Jan Opdebeeck...

The Dutch caricaturists, including the 2007 Bronze Nosey winner, Marion van de Wiel...(l-r: Jan Ibelings, Johanna V, Johannes Lens, and Marion)

With my new friend Paul Moyse, who won the "Offending the Masters" Face-off online competition with his beautiful caricature of Rembrandt.(see it on his blog) We are waiting to see what Court's next challenge will be!

The Amazing Marlo won two awards this year, 3rd place "Best Color", and the "Guest of Honor" award. Dan Adel chose three artists he felt were uniquely original and Marlo and Lar were two of them. Here she is with 2nd place finisher Dan Ginter and Kage Nakanishi, who won both "Best Color" AND the Golden Nosey.

Lar also won an award for "Best 3D", along with Brooke Howell, but the 3D Champion is Celestia Ward, once again. Oh, CHAMPION!!!

This is my dear friend Roger Hurtado, outgoing president of the NCN, who has put alot of heart and effort into running the show for the past two years. Now he'll have more time to draw again ( and get himself a website/blog!!!)

Sam Gorrie, to her shock and surprise, picked herself up two awards, one for live retail style, and one for Caricature of the Year ( I forget what place she was, but it's still great, eh?) Here she is with fellow winners, Mean Matt Zitman, Brian Oakes, Sam, Seo Kim ( who won two awards at her first convention--she's a friend of Sam's and was also our roomie), and 2007 Silver Nosey winner Glenn Ferguson.

Here is Jan accepting his award for "Best Portfolio" from Court Jones.

Another artist I am indebted to: Court Jones, with his lovely lady Debbo. Court's Face-off contests motivated me to try my hand at illustration, resulting in a portfolio of finished pieces.

Court and Debbo both have links to the Japanese caricaturists, and Debbo was given this exquisite kimono by equally-exquisite artist Emi Sato. Isn't this a beautiful picture?
Finally, for the second year, my son has accompanied me to my favorite world, and I am glad to share it with him. ( well, except for the fact that everyone wants to draw him...)