More State Fair shenanigans

Big Tex says, "Get yourrrrr careeee-ca-ture heeerrrre!"

Yesterday brought more beautiful weather and more fantastic faces for us to draw. This young man is an aspiring artist himself (he had cool photos of his work on his phone) so I gave him some websites to order Copic markers and Prismacolor Artstix. Good luck, Chase!



The above two photos were my last customers of the night. Cabeza de Pollo and Funky Musician Couple = Caricature Jackpot!

Paul drew a young Michael Jackson fan AS Michael Jackson-- and he positively beamed when he saw it! (the sample of MJ over his shoulder is by Vlad.)

And Vlad turned his poison pen on me and produced this masterpiece-- of which I can only share a portion, due to the fact that the other person partially depicted would probably kick my a** were I to do otherwise...;-D

Our caricature crew here in Dallas..

That's myself, Vlad from Las Vegas, Paul from Buffalo, and Celestia from Las Vegas.

Check out our sample display (click to make larger). The comments we get from passersby make us crack up. "Oh look, it's the dollar bill guy!" "Hey, there's those people from your favorite show, honey, the one where she hits him..." "They make you the Joker!" and of course, "Oooooh, the Jonas brothers!!!"
This is my work table:

Raring to go today! I learn alot being seated next to such talented pros. We change our seating arrangement every day...

Day 2

A few of mine from today's crop o'caricatures:

The couple above were a few "firsts" for me. They were brother and sister; he wanted himself done in color, and her to be in black and white--and he wouldn't say why! And I've never written that word on a caricature before! :-D



Above: I thought this guy looked like Brett Myers, one of the Phillies pitchers; turns out he is distantly related to actor Mark Harmon! They sure do make a cute couple!

Above is my colleague Paul doing his fun style and getting used to a top feed airbrush as opposed to using a bottle-fed one. Below is Vlad finishing up a fabulous family triple and then their delighted reaction:


We have the best job (I say that ALOT!)

First Day of State Fair of Texas!

I've settled in down here in Dallas, along with my three colleagues, and yesterday was the surprisingly-busy opening day of the Fair. The first thing to do was to make some current samples:

It's hilarious to hear the comments when people see these two, they are a pretty polarizing couple!
Here are my very first customers of the fair, and the first airbrush pieces I have done in months. Luckily I haven't forgotten the technique! :-)





This photo was taken and then emailed to me by this little guy's mom. Thank you so much, I am glad you both liked it!:-) :-) :-)

I've arrived in Dallas...

...to do airbrush caricatures at the STATE FAIR OF TEXAS!!! Yee haw, gonna go get re-acquainted with Big Tex tomorrow, and start drawing on Friday!

Last baseball game of season (for me anyway!)

On Sunday, I got a daylight look at the damage Giant Bambi had done to my car:

So I called the insurance company, and then asked my daughter if I could borrow her car to get to the Orioles game, where I was scheduled to draw. She said yes, but then nicely (ha) reminded me my skills with a stick-shift were probably rusty....and it turned out THEY WEREN'T! ;-P

Okay, the above is what happens when your so-called "friends" are cartoonists...

There's Gary wasting Rick's paper. LOL
Below are the first and last drawings I did at the game, which the Red Sox won and whose fans I drew many more of than O's fans. No more baseball til Opening Day next year...when the people of Baltimore will once again have hope for their baseball team!

Kids' birthday party

After the company picnic on Saturday afternoon, I headed to two little girls' shared birthday party at a community center. There were lots of activities there, my caricatures were only one choice out of many, including face painting, games of skill, and even a visit from a Philadelphia Zoo guide with various critters!



Unfortunately, on the way home I had my own run-in with a critter...a deer.
I am VERY GRATEFUL that I avoided serious injury; this is a common danger on the roads around here. The verdict is still out on whether my car is worth fixing. I'll find out today. :-(

Company Picnic

I spent an absolutely beautiful early fall afternoon in a state park drawing for the employees and families of a small company...we ALL had a great time, kids and adults!



Instead of drawing all the adults separately, I was asked to put eighteen on one sheet, which I ended up needing TWO sheets to do, even though #18 didn't show up. I'm going to add him from a photo for my client.

Thanks so much for having me, and feeding me! I'd love to draw again for you next year! :-)

Happy Birthday, Brian Epstein

It's not Sept 19th yet, but that day's celebrity birthday for the ISCA "Let's Draw' forum belongs to Mr. Brian Epstein, late manager of the Beatles. Without him, the world perhaps wouldn't have become aware of the lads in quite the way it did.
I had a go at him last night with just HB, 2B and 6B graphite pencils, and tried to capture the wistfulness beneath his smile.

Last evening's event was a wedding celebration...

...for a happy recently-married couple. They and their wonderful, warm family and friends all enjoyed each other's company (and my caricatures!) immensely. I started off drawing with just a clipboard during the cocktail hour in the bar, and then we moved upstairs to a big, airy loft where I continued at my easel during dinner (the restaurant was housed in a lovely old barn).

Here are the happy bride and groom...

..and here is the bride with some of her college roommates. (and the artist!)
Yes, I managed to fit six women on one paper! :-)




Some of the bride's family perused the growing pile of caricatures. I even drew some of them multiple times in various combinations!

The barn ceiling was really impressive! So was the dinner, which the bride and groom thoughtfully asked me to share in. Thank you, Carrie and Paul, and best wishes to you!

Revolution #9

The Beatles Rock Band was released today, to revolutionize the gaming world--just as they've done with every mass communication media there is...
Long live the Fab Four!


This is four graphite drawings, scanned and played with in Photoshop. I've been drawing the Beatles since I was thirteen years old, they were my first love(s)...

Pen & Ink Caricature/portrait commission

I had the opportunity to create a very different, thoughtful gift for a recent client...she wanted to give a special professor something to thank him for his help in her receiving a PhD. She had me replicate the style of an old woodcut/pen & ink drawing of scholarly St. Jerome, only with a twist---now it's her advisor, surrounded by the mind-expanding technology of today...

...so his bookwheel (which he actually owns) and office are where you'll find him with his Kindle, Mac laptop, flash drive, Blackberry and desktop with the omnipresent Facebook page on display!
This commission was alot of fun for me. I used to do many pen & ink portraits of people, pets and houses before I became a caricaturist, but I hadn't done a digital pen and ink before. Because we did make some changes along the way, this was an absolute boon, not to mention, doing it digitally fit in well with the whole theme of this drawing---newfangled ways of doing things people have done for hundreds of years--learn, communicate, and DRAW!
My client had lots of good ideas and references for me. Her reaction to the finished piece was: I love it! Thanks so much. It turned out even better than I had originally imagined it.
She was to present a framed version to him today. :-)
I love my job!

Happy birthday, Freddie...

September 5th would have been Queen's Freddie Mercury's 63rd birthday. He's still one of my favorite singers (in fact, 'Somebody to Love' is my phone's ringtone) so when Jan Opdebeeck chose him for the ISCA forum's birthday person for 9/5, I just had to digitally paint him.

His jaw and cheekbones always seemed very exotic to me, so I decided to emphasize those instead of his famous overbite.
RIP Freddie...

Boys' birthday party

Yesterday, I drew at a backyard birthday party for two little brothers. The kids got face-painted, jumped around in the bounce house and then got a caricature!


Did quite a few triple and quadruples at this party, as many parents wanted their entire familes done together. :-)

More O's caricatures...and Charm City's version of Sardi's

I trekked down to Baltimore again last night, to draw at a more sedate game (it lasted a leisurely three hours and forty-one minutes). Most of the fans in attendance were clad in navy blue and pinstripes...guess the Orioles faithful have all gone back to school/work now that summer is just about over. Plus, there's no hope for their team!

It was more of a "couples" night drawing-wise. The two on the left asked me to make their caricature suitable to use as a wedding "save-the-date" card, so I obliged. I hope they remember to send me one so I can see how it turned out!
The two on the right teased each other unmercifully as I drew them, I loved the guy's animated expression!

Below is my colleague (and caricature concession owner) Rick Wright-- in all his glory-- in a restaurant right across from the stadium. We stopped there after the game to see all the caricatures he's done of Baltimore notables since the early nineties. There were 122 of them in a large room near the bar! Rick works on these from photos, sometimes at games when it's slow, so I knew they were all displayed in public somewhere, but to walk in and see an entire room (all four walls) hung in his matted and framed caricatures, was pretty flabbergasting! Way to go, Rick! If anyone's ever in Baltimore, check out the Luna del Sea Restaurant.


Rrrick, Michael Phelps and Kimmie Meissner called and wanted to know, where are theirs?