Last gig of 2011...

...was a birthday party for eleven-year-old Ally, complete with noisemakers and happy-new-year decorations:

The boy guests really outdid themselves on the cheesy grins--here are a few, in order of increasing cheese!

 These two cousins were so much fun to draw because of the contrasting...well, everything!

Happy New Year, see you here in 2012!

Illustrator Drew Friedman was the guest speaker at our ISCA con this year...

...and he has a huge post on his blog today about his experiences with us. Here are two photos I took from my second-row vantage point at his seminar:

Mr. Friedman has a penchant for drawing old Jewish comedians, and a particular liking for rendering liver spots, but I really preferred this drawing of the non-liver-spotted Joan Rivers, while her face still had some elasticity....check out that link at the top for lots more images and info about a very talented, detail-oriented artist.

Season's greetings!

This is the second year in a row I've been under the weather at Christmastime. I didn't even want to look at markers or Wacom pens...but I am feeling better, and this is the result:

2011 is almost over, I hope it has been good for everyone who has visited here (for which I thank you for reading!). Happy New Year, everybody!

Caricature Christmas card...

Here is the lovely card created by one of my MD Irish Festival customers, scanned from all the single caricatures I drew of her kids, of her and her hubby, and their dog from a photo she sent me:

She added the cute little red-and-green hats, bows and holly to make it very festive, and also included my business card on the back! Thank you, Joan!

Last holiday event for this season...

Yesterday, I was asked to draw all the members of a small firm, by one of its members--it was his gift to his co-workers! It was a full-color-with-themes afternoon. :)

 When I asked this gentlemen what he liked to do in his spare time, he said, "work"!

Here they are, minus a dad/daughter one that went home with its owner before I got a photo. Can't believe the holidays are almost upon us!

Another holiday party...

...that I look forward to doing every year. It's held for the family and friends of a vocational training center, and many of the guests have multiple caricatures from me spanning the years, including this young lady:

The attendance was up this year so I did not get many photos...

 Loved this gal's hair!

She was itching to get back to capturing balloons that were dangling everywhere! :-)

The gig without any photos!

Well, except for this one:

Pat Harrington and I drew at a corporate holiday event yesterday that had quite an amount of directions we had to follow, beyond just getting there. First, we were told to have photo ID, as there were two places we would have to pass through security, and to allow time for that. We were told to look as "holiday-ish" as possible ( I think we covered that pretty well). Finally, there was to be absolutely no cell-phone use during the event. We weren't quite sure why that was, as we don't take calls while drawing, but it scared us into not taking photos either! Before we started, we saw the party-goers taking photos with their phones, so we snuck this ONE pic you see above. But no pics of any of the great faces we drew :-(

Drum line caricatures

Did these last week for some college seniors, to be presented at their band banquet---I sent them to the young man who ordered them on behalf of other band members, and here is the email I just received from him:
"They loved them! We got a picture and it is attached. Thank you so much! I will pass this idea on to the freshmen next year and other members of the band, they were the hit of the banquet! Everyone was jealous."

They sure have some good faces! 

Company Christmas party

On Saturday evening, I was cozily caricaturing by the fire for a small company Christmas party:

Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance too, and handed out homemade cookies to everyone!

I asked the client if she had hired them through Gigmasters (that's where she had booked my services) and she said, "No, this is a surprise to me!" It turned out they were two of her guests! (the middle couple below!)

Some more jolly faces:

 (Below) The center gentlemen's wife was under the weather and didn't attend...but Iphone photos came to the rescue once again. :-)

I really have to thank a colleague, Chad Straka for making caricature fans out of my client and her husband. They had a framed drawing he'd done of them that they were very happy with, but he's no longer in this area. Thanks Chad!

Children's Christmas party

This was our line a half-hour BEFORE we caricaturists were due to start!!

Needless to say, it was one of those parties where we cranked out the kids, to the strains of Nat King Cole. I worked next to Pat Harrington:

It was so warm in there that both our Santa hats had to come off. :-(

Here is one of Pat's hilarious drawings in progress:

Here are a few of mine:

I'm pretty sure this was my 10th year drawing at this party. Thank you for having us, as always!