Expats in Bangkok

Expat = a person living in a country not their own, whether permanently or temporarily. Bangkok is such a mixing pot of cultures and nationalities that expats have their own social/business groups here. My son and I attended a cocktail party for one such group, and of course the pen and paper came out... ;-)
This lady is a native of Sri Lanka, and the gentlemen below is from France.

                                               My son displayed what yoga can do for a person as well!

                He was from Pennsylvania!!!!!

Brits in Bangkok..and it's a small world

At a yoga class of my son's, held in a private home in Bangkok, I met more of his wonderful students/friends. This lovely English lady and her daughters were caricature fans, so I asked if they'd ever been drawn before. The younger daughter said, "Yes, at Alton Towers!" Thinking the artist might have been one of my friends (Mike, Mickey, or Mick :-) I asked her if she still had it, and she retrieved it from her room to show me. It turned out to be none of the male artists, but my friend Liesbeth, from Belgium, who spent a summer working there!

I'm holding Liesbeth's drawing. They're holding my drawings.

After class, (my son took no mercy on his mother) I drew them and their dogs! And we chatted about various mutual likes (the Beatles and Queen being top of the list ;-) I'm so lucky to have my vocation be what it is, which allows me to meet such cool people!

Below: a fuzzy Iphone pic of myself and Liesbeth at the opening reception of the 2011 ISCA convention.

SMALL WORLD!!!!

This caricaturist sits for a caricature...in Bangkok

Usually, I'm the one to be found drawing caricatures---but not this past weekend. My son, my Other Half and I found ourselves in Jatujak Market in Bangkok, one of the biggest (35 acres, thousands of vendors and stalls) open air markets in the world. Of course, in a selling atmosphere that large, you're bound to find a few caricaturists plying their skills...

My Other Half, myself and my son waiting to get a caricature

We chanced upon three caricaturists in a large tent, along with a freehand henna tattoo artist.  Many people, mostly tourists,  were patiently waiting their turn, seated in little child-sized chairs, with smells of tantalizing foods of every description wafting over us.

The word "cartoon" was shown more prominently than "caricature" in their display... they didn't seem to go in for much exaggeration...and they use a pencil I wasn't familiar with, a Mars Staedtler EE, a nice, soft, very dark lead. 

We decided to go with this artist, Mr. Kang, based on his self-caricature:

We watched him draw the people ahead of us, a cute Thai same-sex couple. He made the girly one carrying the boy-ey one in her arms!

When it was our turn, my son, who is fluent in Thai, asked which one of us the artist wanted to draw first (we all wanted to be in the same drawing...I know, I know, more people are harder!  But the pricing was by the person, so he wasn't losing money for squishing us all in. And that's without saying anything about how difficult my face is to draw, or so I've been told ;-) 

We decided not to put him on the spot by telling him that I shared the same job description.

He wanted to draw me first:

Then my son:

And finally my Other Half:

While my son was sitting there waiting, he gave the artist plenty to work with for a body situation:

(don't try this at home, kids, he's a yoga teacher)

So this is the end result!

Tee-hee! I really enjoyed his take on my son. And I thought it was quite a good stab at me...except he gave me my hair color from ten years ago :-) As for my Other Half, we found the pot belly to be funnily exaggerated!! :-) We finally let on that I was an artist too, and I had my son tell him about the International Society of Caricature Artists...and gave him a card with my info and ISCA's. To my knowledge, there are no Thai members; I hope he looks us up!

The other hilarious thing about this drawing is that my son's foot seems to be touching the top of the wat (Buddhist temple) and that is a big "no-no" in Thai culture... the foot touching anything, is disrespectful. Or maybe it's just perspective!!!! :-)

ขอขอบคุณคุณ (Thank you) Mr. Kang!

Little kids at a bon-voyage party in Bangkok

One of my son's yoga students and her husband invited us to a going-away party at their condo in downtown Bangkok. So I brought my clipboard, markers and artstix (I always travel with those), bought some copy paper and dove right in with the kids (caricaturistically speaking :-)

The little ones were really interested! (Photos by George)

 I was a little out of my element, as I didn't have bags for the drawings, or my easel and other paraphernalia, but it went well! I may even have sparked some interest in my craft. :-)

I drew from phones for parents whose kids happened to be elsewhere that day...

 It was really neat to meet so many people from all over the world at one little gathering. There were Aussies, Brits, Japanese, Americans, Russians, Belgian, and French. We even met a couple who lived near where my Other Half grew up! Thank you for having us, Yulia and Ben!

Caricaturing a long, long way from home...in Thailand!

January is usually the slowest time of the year for me in regards to live caricature events, so it's the optimal time to go away. I've found myself (along with my Other Half) in Thailand again to visit my son George...and here is the first live drawing for 2013:

George teaches yoga and has also always been a musician. Recently he starting crafting these little thumb pianos, or kalimbas, as they're called. It took alot of pounding pavement in the carpentry and steel-crafting districts of Bangkok to find the Thai artisans to make his components. He uses one at the restful end of his classes and is now selling them to students and anyone else who would like to spread ethereal tones...one lady he was showing it to described it as "twinkly music" :-). Here is a link to George's Sound My Soul page.

George said that the "asana" (yoga position I drew him in) wasn't quite possible.  ;-)

Happy New Year 2013!

Happy new year, everyone! My first post of 2013 will feature  a few pics from one of my final caricature events from December... a holiday party for employees of an assisted living home. One of the cool things about this particular chain of homes is that they all have a resident dog...and I got to draw him!

The chefs showed up too:

I still have a few more December events to blog about, but I am looking forward to lots of caricaturing in 2013. Hope everyone had a wonderful 2012 and that this coming year is good to everyone!