Caricatures at this little guy's 2nd birthday party

Gigsalad has really been coming through with parties for me lately. This was another one, that I thoroughly enjoyed doing, even though it was a sultry, hot day for everyone. Happy birthday to Eliot!

I was set up in a tent on the lawn...the kids were busy with water toys, and the grown-ups were busy enjoying a clambake!

My blue padded folding chair was accidentally left behind that day, luckily, my client held on to it for me--- I retrieved it the following week, when I happened to have another gig in her town!  I've had it since the start of my caricature career. It's been under my butt while caricaturing at hundreds, maybe make it thousands of locales, so I am sentimental about it. Silly but true... 

Here's the family caricature:

and a little guy with the quintessential two-year-old word:

As usual, I did all the kids first and then did some adults. My lovely client had this feedback waiting for me when I next logged in with Gigsalad, for which I can't thank her enough!

                                                     I would definitely hire Emily again!

We hired Emily to do caricatures for my son's 2nd birthday party. I received quotes and reviewed other vendor's work and Emily's was the by far the best and worth every penny. Caricatures are supposed to look cartoonish, but should still look like the real person... just exaggerated! Emily's style of drawing was what won me over... the fact that she was able to produce such amazing keepsakes while sketching a moving target (since trying to get a toddler to sit still for more than 5 seconds at a time is like trying to herd cats!) is why I would hire her again!

Carnival-themed college graduation celebration

Another recent, extremely enjoyable gig for me was this college graduation party, held in a hotel just off-campus from the University of Delaware. I'll bet a huge majority of its guests were out-of-state families and friends of students who had graduated that afternoon. The hotel put on a quite a nice spread for them in the lobby!

 As locales go for a caricarist and her easel, this was pretty darn near perfect!

This couple sat and waited for me for twenty minutes before start-time, they were true caricature fans! And when he told me he was from San Francisco, and had a caricature from his grad night a few years ago, I deduced that he probably had it done by my friend Zach Trenholm...

Here are some more happy faces!

Thanks to Gigsalad for this one! 

My client left some nice feedback for me there, thank you so much!!!

Emily was awesome! She is very professional, set up with plenty of time, and moves through the line quickly and efficiently. And, best of all, her caricatures were great! I would definitely recommend her.

Caricature Corn Hole Boards!

This popular, old-fashioned game is popping up everywhere...I'd seen it being played at two recent gigs! Then I was commissioned to paint caricatures on some brand-new boards provided to me by a  client. They were going to gift these to their friends, who were depicted with their favorite things. :-)

The boards were painted white and delivered to me. I airbrushed the caricatures, then the clients came back and collected the finished boards, with instructions to put several layers of clear varnish on them. They were quite happy with them: 

Emily these look amazing. We love them!  

Here's how they looked in my studio before painting:

Hope they had fun using them!

Caricatures for some wonderful pals...

My blog is waaaaaaay behind on posting! It's been a very busy spring and early summer so far this year. Without further ado, last month, I was lucky enough to spend quality time drawing some very happy campers in a park on a sun-dappled day:

The occasion was a summer kick-off picnic for PALS Programs, and they were nice enough to book me through Gigmasters for their event. Look at these great faces! 

They had some other fun things happening:

 Below: Corn Hole Boards. More about that in my next blog post. 

My client was a joy to deal with and she left me some very-much-appreciated feedback:

Emily was AMAZING. She attended our non-profit's picnic and worked for three hours. She drew caricatures of our campers who have Down syndrome and she did an awesome job. She captured their individual likeness without emphasizing their "disability." We would absolutely use her again! 

Thank YOU so much for having me and enjoying everyone's smiling faces!! :-)

Blue and Gold banquet caricatures...

One type of gig that I enjoy immensely is the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. I did one years ago for this particular pack, and I did it again recently. There were quite a few little boys to get through after the ceremonies were over and it was party time, so I didn't get any photos...except of this extremely-decorated-with-badges young man who sat for me before it got crazy. Congrats!

Benefit for Suicide Prevention, in honor of my cousin Al...

Recently, I added my skills to those of many others who wished to honor their friend, cousin, nephew, brother and/or son on his birthday...and also wanted to help prevent other families from knowing the grief of losing a loved one to suicide. A Beef'n'Beer was held, which had a huge turnout, many more than the organizers were expecting. Donations went to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. My sign-in caricature made the rounds and was given to Al's mother at the end of the night...  

I also drew some live caricatures:

There were so many raffles, they took up half the wall space in the room! One of them was for a digital pet caricature...

It was won by exactly whom I was hoping would win....someone in my family! My cousin Becca won, and promptly gave it to her mother. So, I'll be doing a beautiful German Shepherd digital caricature soon. (The MinPin shown was just a sample). Apparently, it had many tickets in its bag!

Over $5600 was raised during the evening. RIP Al....