2012 Irish Festival

The day before heading to the ISCA convention in San Antonio, I was caricaturing my little (25%) Irish fingers off at the annual Irish festival...

Wait! She's NOT Irish!!  I had a run of faces who were just Irish-for-the-day :-) This young lady is an exchange student from China, who wanted to be drawn doing an Irish jig. She showed me how to write her name in Chinese, and I added it at the top.

Wait! SHE'S not Irish, either! But---she has a typical gingery, pasty-skinned, Guiness-loving guy for a hubby! ;-)

Now for some actual Irish dancers:

This couple, for me, were so much fun to draw. First of all, they wanted an airbrushed one (the rest are all artstix.) She was wearing green eyeshadow and lots of bling. They had a crowd of family members watching, and quite a happy reaction when I showed them. 

I happened to see her later, and she was still clutching their caricature!

Here's a little sample of the vibe:

That's the kind of music to get your toes tappin'. Also, this is the ONLY gig of the year where my snack food of the day is "champ". 

Caricatures for FB

Every once in a while, I like to check my FB fan page to see if any of them are using my caricature of them as their avatar:

It's a nice feeling to see that my drawings have an online presence!

Thirty in Two

I had a weeknight gig this past week at a local university...it was an event called "Picture This" where the students were treated to an evening of caricatures, two photobooths and a green screen set-up. Since it was a low-key event, I decided to take photos of all my drawings...so my head count is accurate. Thirty BW faces in two hours. :-)

Below: 10 % of them! 

And here are the other 90%...click to enlarge.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

ISCA convention 2012

Just returned from the annual convention for the International Society of Caricature Artists, held in San Antonio, Texas, this year. My entry in the Studio piece competition received second place honors!

It's a mixed media, interactive (you can PLAY with it!) piece, of the British Royal Family, as paper dolls. Their clothing (except Harry's, his clothing was not included ;-) is magnetic. I will have a post about how I created it soon.

Right now, I am in the midst of adding photos from the con here on my Caricatures by Emily FB page, and hope to have some commentary here soon about that, too. Thanks to all my colleagues who voted for my work, it's MUCH APPRECIATED!!! :-) :-)

Christening portrait

It's not often that I attempt portraits, but this is my result, done for a christening the Other Half and I attended last weekend...

 It's airbrush, marker, and colored pencil.

Here, it's being passed around to sign, next to the little angel...

This is how it looked after everyone but Mommy and Daddy had signed:

The service was held in a historic church on Manhattan's Upper West Side...St. Michael's Episcopal:

Many of the stained glass windows were done by Tiffany:

Another treat wasn't visual, but aural:

Here is a link to the organist. What an unexpected pleasure to listen to him play this!

This is what he says on his website: 

"...the spark that fueled the fires to explore all musical styles as a musician and not just a critical listener began with John Belushi.  Yes, Mr. Belushi couldn’t have known that when he came onto the SNL stage in the mid-1970s dressed as Beethoven, sat down at the piano, and morphed the all-too familiar strains of Für Elise into a boogie-woogie that a little boy’s soul in Eastern Kentucky was reeling from the religious experience taking place inside him.  I saw the light indeed and knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life." 

I saw that skit as a kid, too. Love hearing how other artists find their passion! 

USA Election: Who's it going to be?

The mudslinging is OVER---Today's the day we find out!

These two airbrushed caricatures were done as samples while I was at the State Fair of Texas. Celestia drew Obama, and I drew Romney---as equally guilty of running mean-spirited campaigns.  We figured it'd keep our own political persuasions amibiguous. Whatever ours happen to be, many Texans who ambled by (with an opinion to voice) had only one take on our drawings: 

"Obama's digging his own grave, and Romney's helping him"!!

Not too much longer, and it will be all settled--no more campaign mail or unsolicited automated phone calls! (That's what I'M waiting for!

Video snippets from the State Fair of Texas

Here's a look at some sights and sounds, in and out of the caricature booth this year. All four of my colleagues make appearances. :-)