"Delco vs. Montco" wedding reception

Saturday evening's wedding reception was a blast!

An exuberant couple and all their friends jokingly divided themselves into two camps: those from Delaware County, PA  "Delco" (the bride and her family and friends) and those from Montgomery County, PA "Montco" (the groom and his).  Well, OF COURSE, I had to write that on all the caricatures!!! And for the record, I am originally "Delco"!!! :-) Wooo-hooo!

I started out drawing in the foyer, for the cocktail hour:

...then I moved into the ballroom as the reception proper began...

There were a few folks from farther afield: 

These two were the first drawing of the evening, and the only one that didn't include the caption. They escaped before I got a photo of them. ;-) I never did find out if they were Delco or Montco:

Fun night!!! The bride and groom were so busy dancing that they didn't have time to sit for a caricature...but that happens, receptions can be crazy and intense. Thanks to my clients, the sister and brother-in-law of the groom, who had me draw at their wedding last year! 

That was the view as I packed my gear and headed out into another frigid night. Will spring pleeeeeeease arrive?

Here's a great caricature reaction that I also put on my Instagram:

Thanks for having me....DELCO!!!!

8th Birthday party

On Saturday afternoon, I had to opportunity to draw for a sweet little girl's 8th birthday celebration.

By happy circumstance, I was able to draw for her and her friends for an hour (normally, I have a two-hour minimum for parties) for two reasons---it was a small group (which meant everybody got a full color caricature!) and it was actually on the way to my second gig, a wedding reception in the evening. Yay serendipity!

The reason most caricaturists have a two-hour minimum is because then we can get a decent number of guests done at the event, and it helps us to keep from driving between too many short events in a day. Most gigs are far enough away that it just makes sense. I have an unwritten policy that my drawing time must be at least marginally longer then my driving time to get there, one way. The further away the gig, the more hours I require. The craziest trip I had between gigs once was an afternoon party in central NJ, and an evening one in Lancaster County PA. There was a lot of driving that day! 

An evening with Steve Brodner...

Recently, one of America's most prominent satirical illustrators, Steve Brodner, took the train down from NYC to Baltimore, so he could spend an evening chatting to folks interested in his work. I was one of those folks!  

I'd actually met Steve once before, in 2004 when he was the guest speaker for ISCA's (then the National Caricaturists Network's) annual convention, in Florida that year. Of course I didn't expect him to remember me, but he did remember that it was a crazy week with us. ;-)

This time, he was sharing his thought process with an audience at Johns Hopkins University.  The evening was actually re-scheduled from 2014...when it was cancelled by a snowstorm. This year's event skated in just after a hellacious ice storm. (But global warming is a topic for another day!) The facilitator for the evening was Tom Chalkley, a delightful JHU professor, caricaturist and friend, who is also the man responsible for introducing my colleague-in-crime Celestia Ward to the world of caricature in her college days. Yes, caricaturists comprise a small, some-might-say-incestuously-small, industry in the larger world of artists. 

Steve gave an amusing overview of his career, his process, and his politics, and told some very witty anecdotes...he is quite comfortable speaking in public, which I find amazing as a visual artist. The turnout was around eighty to a hundred. But the real one-two punch of the evening was the visuals:

The thing I find most inspiring about Steve is how passionate he is about his work, and that comes through when you look at how witheringly he sees his victims. 

(Interestingly, Steve's art is a current subject on an illustration blog I read....

held up as an example of "extreme" caricature. The blogger's opinions don't jibe with mine, as he seems to be saying that Hirschfeld's, Levine's (whose work I LOVE) and Drucker's art fall in a different category as "mere likenesses". Sigh. Anyway, be prepared to read a LOT of LOOOOONG comments if you like debate. 

http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2015/03/extreme-caricature.html

Too bad it's white text on black too, I hate that!!!)

Back to Baltimore: I had a chance to say hello. :-)

Afterwards,  a few of us adjourned for a pleasant meal....Fellow ISCA members from Maryland Rick Wright and Mike Hasson joined us, along with artist pals Toonboy Smith and Patrick Harnett... and my devoted Other Half.  :-)

Draw, Mike, draw!!! 

Caricatures at an 18th birthday party!

It's snowing as I write this, on the first day of spring!  Hopefully winter is having its very last hurrah. 

In the meantime, the second gig I did last weekend was for a lovely young lady celebrating her 18th, in a cozy-by-the-firepit corner of a busy restaurant...

She had some friends with greeeeeat faces!

Not to mention her fun-loving dad and sister!

Happy birthday Polly, and many thanks to you and your family---for finding my website and having me draw for you! :-)

Minion-y 1st Birthday...and a surprise

Spring is desperately trying to be sprung here, and on a warmer, rainy Saturday afternoon I found myself joining the guests at a lively, Minion-themed 1st birthday party. Mom and Dad sat for a family caricature with the birthday boy, then went to light candles and sing to the little guy. Right as they finished singing, the dad proposed to the mom in front of an excited throng of friends and relatives! I wasn't able to get photos of that but I DID revise the caricature to make sure it captured all the day's events!

Left: Before Proposal. Right: AFTER proposal!

I had fun drawing minions on everybody's caricature.

This guy asked for TWO minions.

The party had a bunch of hashtags!

So I put this one on my own Instagram!

Thanks again and congratulations to both the birthday boy and his parents!!!!!!

Update: The new bride-to-be sent this note afterward: 

Thank you so much,  for making DeMikos party more of a hit! We were so impressed with your drawings. You do such an awesome job! We will spread the word about your caricatures, and keep you in mind for save-the-date, and wedding! Thank you so much, again! 

Wedding Save-the-Date Caricature

Just received this sweeeeeeet photo from a couple whom I airbrushed-caricatured a few months ago. At my suggestion, they used my caricature on their Save-the-Date cards for their wedding!

 It's so delightfully gratifying to see my work used for this purpose. Congrats to you, Amy and Rob!

Freakishly-fun fundraiser...

Saturday night saw a circus-freak-themed gala fundraiser happen, of which my caricatures played a small part, all for a good cause. IMAGINE 2015 was presented by AIDS Delaware in a plush Wilmington hotel, and was complete with silent, creepy clowns, sword-swallowers, ninjas, and of course lots of good food and drink, plus a silent auction.

I brought my Other Half along. It's always nice to have him on hand to take photos. 

 Ready to go!

Loved this guys's coat and hat!

She swallowed a sword!

 Here's a view of my patiently-waiting future subjects...

The final excitement of the evening was an engagement! Congrats!!!

Thank you, AIDS Delaware, for having me at this event for the third time! :-)

Wrestling caricatures

This past weekend, I crammed many hours of caricaturing into one long day. But that's fun to me! First up was a wrestling tournament, and my drawing time was during the little-guy matches:

Since I was there representing CaricaturesbyRick.com, I was able to use Rick's pre-printed wrestling papers, and just draw heads (and medals if they had any!)

I even drew the late lamented Mr. Spock wrestling, during some down time, with that pose. ;-)

This one was allll drawn by me. That doesn't seem like a legal wrestling move. 

The girls who sat for me had other ideas. She wanted the Oriole Bird:

And SHE wanted a gymnastics pose. Not just ANY gymnastics pose, though...she had an image on her phone she wanted me to to draw:

She was pretty surprised when I told her her I actually knew the MAD artist who drew that!

Sorry, Tom Richmond!!!!! ;-)

And thanks, Rick!