ISCA con wrap-up...

My final post on this year's ISCA con is a mishmash of memorable moments and art--my favorites from other people's walls, and some of my pieces with their owners. 

First up: the two caricatures I received from artists I really dig!

Mine is not a face that usually nets me a ton of great drawings each year at the con. Along with Court Jones, Debbo Burmeister and some others, I have what's considered a tough face to caricature: no obvious stand-out features or proportions. That's not to say it can't be done, but I've always thought the hallmark of a really good caricaturist is how well he or she can capture the likeness of someone with more subtle features. Mike Tofanelli and Lar DeSouza took on the challenge and succeeded! I love both these pieces and have hung them in my studio already.

Below are some of my week's works. At the end of the awards banquet, each artist gives them to their new owners and it's always a crazy, hectic but happy chaos!

Above: Wayne Savage, Mike Tofanelli, Bob East.  Below: Wade Collins, Jeff Redford, Hilary Cole.

Below, in no particular order, are other artists' pieces done at the con that I was especially taken with. 

 Mikey Shields by Michael White. Those are real glued-on googly eyes! Trippy, huh?

 A very Sam Gorrie-y Sam Gorrie by Seo Kim. The difficult-to-get Court Jones by Seo Kim.

Alisa Grodsky by a talented, hilarious artist whose name I don't know, unfortunately.

 Caricature silhouettes by Karel Op De Beeck. An oily Jeff Redford by Klaas Op De Beeck.

 Andy Urzua and his girlfriend Cloudy by someone with impeccable linework.

 Another one of Andy from an amazing award-winning rookie:

 This is Andy's reaction when he first saw it!

Lar "Maple Bear" DeSouza, in a digitally-done escort card by Celestia Ward. Yes, we were in Vegas...

Two masterful oils by Court Jones, of guest speaker Bill Plympton and the omnipresent Lar.

This is kinda cool: you can see the same lady, ISCA manager Tracey Iverson, both above and below, as seen by Court Jones and Lorin Bernsen.

Court also gave a very informative seminar on the muscles used in smiling, that at times was more like a college medical anatomy class. Below is Bob East's award winning (for humor) take on it.

Below, Glenn Ferguson had a whole wonderful wallful of airbrushed Star-Wars-themes caricatures and netted Master of the Year for it.

Glenn also had an award-winning Studio entry. Check this out:

It's made of Sculpey and a whole lot of talent and ingenuity, and it got my vote.

(My own studio entry was a somewhat revamped Kate Gosselin-and-family that I'd digitally done earlier in the year...)

If you're interested in more photos from our convention, check out the public ISCA page on Facebook. where you can see more award-winners and their works. :-)

After the awards dinner, many of us went to an after-party in the (much more happenin') hotel across the street from our convention --the famed Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel. Would you believe we were STILL drawing caricatures? Cathy McMillan seemed to be another one with not enough caricatures of herself! So a bunch of us passed around a clipboard so she'd have a whole collection. Can you tell which one I drew?

Next year, the Gulf Coast of Florida will host ISCA! Til next November!

Sculpey-ing at the ISCA con...

I sat with some very talented lady sculptors this year at the ISCA con. While I'm nowhere near as accomplished as they are,  we all find it enjoyable to take a lump of Sculpey and make it into something recognizable and amusing. 

Myself, Johanna Veerenhuis and Celestia Ward start our pieces. Celestia already has the four members of the ISCA board roughed in on her...board. :-)

Johanna chose to do one spectacular figurine, of our new ISCA president Steve Hearn as Elvis Presley. 

(Well, we were in Las Vegas!) Click to see a video of Johanna sculpting a hand.

I decided to do a relief of another tablemate, Jeff Redford, (who is also an accomplished sculptor) since he made an especially good model--being just a few feet away!

 Here's a close up of mine:

I learned quite a bit about this discipline from my friends that I plan to put to use this coming year. I wish I hadn't painted my Jeff in quite the way I did (no more high gloss paint for skin--you'll see in a later photo) but I was pleased with the likeness...

Below is a later stage of Johanna's:

And this is Celestia's final touches: ( screws, nails, scratches, etc. )

Being a LV native, Celestia generously shared her home oven with all her friends (aka competitors) as Sculpey needs to be baked at a low temperature before painting or glazing. Thank you, Ms. Ward!

We also shared our space with another gentleman who is very handy with the sculpting tools, Karel Op de Beeck. He made an amazing wine bottle holder of Lar De Souza, for which he allowed me to do the calligraphy on the faux wine label:

Below are all the Sculpey pieces as they appeared for voting. Celestia managed to pull off another entry of three colleagues who had each lost a huge amount of weight over the past year, for a total of six likenesses in two sculptures. (It would have been seven, but Lorin Bernsen made an appearance in both!) The long-necked fellow on the left was a last minute entry by Ellen Lustig, who came over to join the Sculpey fun on the final competition day. 

 The final pieces!

My piece requires a little bit of explanation. Jeff has worn high-top Reeboks for many years, but they don't make them anymore, and he is on his last pair... :-(

Congratulations to Johanna with her first place win, and Celestia with her third-place finish. Second was taken by an exquisitely done pair of shadow boxes by Beejay Hawn, which I'll have in another post.

ISCA speakers, seminars, and the likeness competition...

Our guest speaker was none other than Bill Plympton. He treated us to a preview of his latest animated feature and some other works. I had actually not been aware of his stuff before and was especially entranced with his short called, "The Wiseman." Enough to buy the DVD!

Actually, I'd seen his Gilda caricature before, but didn't know whose it was.

At a evening reception for ISCA gold members, I got to chat with him and be drawn as a Plymptoon.

After the afternoon seminar, he drew this whole line of artists-- we all know what that feels like!

We were also treated to seminars by some of the best artists out there in Caricatureland. This year's Caricature 101 was done by Sean Gardner (below) who talked about his approach to head shapes and observation. It's always interesting to hear different approaches to what we all do. 

A fascinating hour was spent with Court Jones as he explored the mechanics of the smile:

In order to do that, it's helpful to know something of the musculature of the skull.

Below: her mouth might be slightly smiling but her eyes are not (anatomically speaking!)

A representative from Prismacolor came and talked about their products, which so many caricaturists use. AND she gave out goodies!

Lar gave a very in-depth (for an hour, at least) overview of particular things in Photoshop that are of interest to caricaturists/cartoonists. I took two whole pages of notes for things I want to try. By the way, check out Lar's Ustream broadcast this coming Friday night, I am sure he will reminisce about the con!

Another evening's festivities included the likeness competition. Photos are projected and a whole roomful of us caricature them within a generous ten-minute time limit, then we vote on them. This year's event had some changes---no shading was permitted, it was to be black-and-white created with one instrument only. Two of the photos were strangers, but the third photo happened to be the outgoing ISCA president's mother (he told us so) ...uh oh, there were some irreverent ones!

I'm trying to work fast...seated next to these two jokers:

Ok, I wasn't too nice. (The con is supposed to be where you let your hair down since you're not drawing clients ;-)

 This is what I came up with.

Check out some of the other ones!

Well, caricature art does run the gamut from cute to downright rude. Ha, I like both! As long as the likeness is there.