February Toon Challenge on FB- Del Rubio Triplets

Toon Challenge is a fledgling group on FB looking for monthly entries on a theme, run by my friend Bob East (aka Beast)--February's theme was "Old West" so I contributed this quick doodle (quick because I cheated and drew old identical triplets---of course I only did one, and copy/pasted her!)
And okay, maybe they aren't strictly "Western" but they're wearing fringe! :-)

A third-birthday party

with a Princess theme...

Isn't that a gorgeous cake?

For a gorgeous little girl who wasn't shy at all, even though this this photo makes her seem so.

I drew all of her little friends and some of their parents...

...and her cousin who was the only brave boy present.

Happy birthday Imani!

BIG airbrush commission!

BIG because it was of sixteen college students, and BIG because it was forty inches tall by fifteen feet long!

  

My client wanted to do a special group caricature for his nephew and all his friends in his college residence hall. So, he emailed me photos of everyone to be included, and then actually brought me this huuuuuuge roll of paper to do it on. It took me about four-plus hours of steady work to produce this caricature mural that was to be hung in the corridor.

I did all the marker drawing first, from photos displayed on my monitor,  then rolled the paper to each new section as I worked my way along. After the marker work was done, I airbrushed three or four students at a time, one color at a time.

This is a composite photo of each section, as my client and I were fairly sure there would be no frontal vantage point from which to get a photo once it was hung!

He told me they loved it! :-) And thanks for sharing photos of it onsite!

The updated 15MGS blog banner...

Last summer, I provided a popular anti-Kate-Gosselin blog, 15 Minutes Gosselin Style, with a banner to visually express Kate and her ex-husband's Jon's joint exploitation of their eight children on reality television. Recently, she has been trying to hold on to her fame with several B-list talk show interviews showing her outrageous fake tan and bleach-blonde hair extensions, while having gone to court to secure the right to be the sole parent who decides whether said children are filmed or not ( after Jon attempted to have it stopped). And they are still being filmed, here in the US and as far afield as Australia and New Zealand recently. Jon has pretty much dropped out of the public spotlight, has a normal job, and is pursuing his legal issues with her in private.

So it was time for an updated banner!

Click here if you want to compare it to the old one.

Sarah and the Neanderthals...final version

Finished my digital of Sarah and her favorite polysyllabic word lately.

Hey, Neanderthals are people too!

Sarah and the Neanderthals...part 2

I'm still working on Sarah and her friend for the ISCA February challenge:

This is about half done, I'm going for a watercolor look (it's digital).

Caricaturama Showdown 3000-Brigitte Bardot

This week's challenge is French screen siren Brigitte Bardot, whom John Lennon worshipped as a young man...to the point that his first wife Cynthia revamped her hair color, hairstyle and clothing choices to emulate her for him.

Digital pen and ink, took about 2 1/2 hours.

The train just arrived for this digital commission

My client graciously shared this photo of the three caricature recipients at their company's recent anniversary bash. Thank you! Seeing my work in their hands is a real thrill for me. :-)

A giggly 10th birthday party

Last night, I got to help this young lady celebrate her 10th birthday by drawing her, her brother, and ten of her friends in full-body, full-color style. :-)

She and her brother both like the Steelers, so to help me out with the uniform and the logo, they looked up those images on their Ipad.
Below are a bunch of happy girls with their drawings. I drew most of them last year too, and they came up with plenty of imaginative scenarios again!

Let's see, from left to right you have: "with a panda" "basketball" "with a weiner dog (dachsund)" "At the Phillies' stadium" "with a cupcake" "as a pig" "competitive swimming" "on the beach" "as a Power Puff girl" "soccer" and not to be outdone, "with cupcakes AND ice cream" !
The mom at this party had some entertaining games going on while I drew.  She had a fun quiz with questions designed to see how well the guests knew the birthday girl...even I knew the answer to "What is her favorite food?" (PIZZA!!!)  The other ongoing game was that if any of the girls used the word "THE" she had to forfeit a plastic bracelet to whomever caught her...the idea was to see who got the most bracelets by the end of the party. They certainly enjoyed catching one another!
FUN stuff, and thank you for having me again! :-)

Old sketchbook stuff #2: happy birthday, Yoko

Yoko Ono is seventy-eight years old today.

This is another old pencil sketch scanned and colored with PS.

Old sketchbook stuff #1- three Pythons

Just found this, scanned it and did a little color in PS. Say no more!

Caricaturama 3000-Emily Blunt

Never heard of her before, and she has one of those faces that changes like a chameleon...she played Queen Victoria last year in a movie called "Young Victoria" and also appeared in "The Devil Wears Prada."
This was my final: I attempted to make a digital piece look like  pastel--

Below: the very sketchy preliminary drawing and the middle stage:

Here is the link to Caricaturama, check out how different she looks in all of them!

UPDATE 2-15-11: My piece came in third out of 90 entries! :-)
The winner was the very deserving Pete Emslie, you can see his entry here.

Sarah and the Neanderthals

She's been using this big word alot lately...

This is the first rough for the February ISCA challenge.

Caricatures as corporate gifts

One of the best things about giving a caricature as a gift is the fact that the recipients get something tailored specifically for them. These gentlemen were feted last weekend for a company anniversary, and each received his own copy of my digital caricature, which was lots of fun for me to create.

Their corporate colors are black and purple, which worked perfectly for the train...and on the very front you can see their circular logo! This is the kind of thing that I enjoy doing-- (aside from the faces)---finding ways to implement things that the client wants included in the image.

Party-style family foursome

Most of my commissions are of the digital variety anymore, but once in awhile I get a request for a real pencil-on-paper one. This recent family caricature was done from photos for a client, as a gift to her boss.

A birthday in the Palm Restaurant...

Yesterday morning, I didn't even know I'd be doing a different kind of gig in the evening!
I was asked (by a thoughtful wife) to come draw at the Palm in Philly for her husband's birthday. They were coming into town by limo, for a nice steak dinner, and he had no idea it would be at a restaurant famed for its walls of caricatures and cartoons---or that a caricaturist would be waiting to draw HIM!

They (and their children's photos) were my only subjects, so I was able to do an 18' x 24" extravaganza of their night for them, before they sped off for a spot of gambling at a nearby casino. Guys, don't you wish your wives treated you so well on your birthdays? :-) 

Before they arrived, I had time to sip an old-school Coke and admire the walls:

One large image caught my eye:

It's by my beloved Dr. Suess!

Here are some Philly heroes:

It turns out that not only celebs adorn the their wall---if you eat there often enough, you can too. While I chose not to have a meal, my clients raved over the food and it certainly smelled fantastic.  And the piece of chocolate cake I did have was pretty scrumptious. 

There are Palm restaurants all over the country...wonder how they get their caricatures? Hmmmm...

Better late than never...

Last year, the ISCA board questioned members as to whom they thought had the most interesting faces to draw in 2010. One of the world-wide notables who made the list was America's own Glenn Beck...

And this is my take on him and his rally from August of last year (my apologies to Dr. Suess). I think you can safely infer that I'm one of his critics.
The list and its accompanying caricatures were just published in our quarterly newsletter, Exaggerated Features. I'm very proud to have my work shown along with the likes of Court Jones, Euan McTavish, and others.