University Alumni Picnic...

Amid the wafting smells of hot dogs, I drew kids of alumni on a perfect-weather day, in this Fun Zone:

and also a few random students and actual alumni!

How to use up mostly dead Sharpies and Chartpaks...

...use them to draw Freddie Mercury!

Corporate dinner..with bonus history lesson!

Last night, I drew for a very jovial corporate team meeting...held in the banquet facility of a beautiful old opera house:

The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware has hosted everything from opera to dramatics, to vaudeville, to lectures ( I'll get to that in a minute) to second-run movies before being restored to the 19th century treasure it is today.
First, some of my caricatures:

This gentleman asked me to inscribe the caricature to his wife for both Mother's Day AND an anniversary...to hoots from his friends, he added, "I'm also going to give her a bar of hotel soap." Hence my little addition....   ;-)

After finishing (to applause!! thank you :-) in my allotted time, the manager of the facility graciously offered to give the night's magician, the Amazing Larry, and myself a quick tour:

The stage was set up for a production of "Porgy and Bess'. We then walked out into the 'Hall of History", an exterior wall of the theater which was now an interior part of the complex--hung with documents, photos and playbills. My eye fell on THIS:

Thomas Nast, (editorial caricaturist and illustrator of both modern-day Santa Claus and Uncle Sam!!) gave a lecture on caricaturing here in 1873!!! I squealed and hopped up and down---and Larry said I wasn't excited enough. ;-)

There were also some very interesting photos of the period hung on original dressing-room doors that were almost caricatures in themselves:

 Here are Proprietor Barry (thank you sir!) and Magician Larry in front of a giant print of Old Wilmington:

When I returned to pack up my easel, I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to draw some more--a group caricature, for which I gladly obliged! Thank you for having me!

40th birthday digital commission

My idea of a fun commission: This one had freckles, wine, great hair, and an awesome t-shirt....on an awesome rack. ;-)

Bride and groom and guests at the Bellevue...

On Saturday evening, I was honored to have my caricatures be a part of a beautiful wedding reception held at the historic Bellevue Stratford in Philadelphia. Here are the very happy and well-suited (the maid of honor's toast had everyone close to tears) couple...

Initially, I started out on a balcony overlooking the ballroom for the cocktail hour, this was the view looking down:

Of course, most of my caricatures were twosomes:

Above: Unfortunately, this particular photo does NOT show the almost perfect symmetry of the dad's hairstyle...but my caricature does! :-)

After an hour, everyone moved down to the ballroom itself for dinner and dancing, and so did my portable French easel and I. In fact, I carried it down this stunning elliptical marble staircase in its fully open position. Those of you who know of my propensity to be a klutz will doubtless be surprised I made it without a hitch! ;-)

More happy faces:

Above: When I saw this lady's glasses, I just said, "NON-CONFORMIST!!!" and she laughed and said, "YES!" Below: The bride and her adorable mother:

The band, Tribeca Grand,  played everything from "At Last" to "Play that Funky Music" and their energy was palpable:

Here's my view from my second caricature spot and a photo of  the lovely cake..

The bride asked to me to stay on a little longer to accommodate more people, which I gladly did. Thank you so much, Amy and Dan!! My best wishes to you both!

I managed to get a few snippets of video, some from during set-up time and then a little bit of the band. 

Had to laugh at the music playing while everyone went about making ready for the guests to arrive:

Sunny Days 2012

For the second year running, my caricatures have been a part of the annual fundraising event for the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County, a cause to which I am pleased to contribute. The venue is the beautiful Brandywine Manor, a hidden jewel of Chester County:

I started out on the terrace:

Then I moved inside the tent after thunderstorms with light-show-lightning arrived:

These two ladies were drawn last year, too. As I progressed with this one, I told them it was "another winner". They agreed with belly-laughs!

The band, "The Strangers", was quite good and I just had to get a snippet of this song:

These next two photos were taken by Allison Benford, a lovely young lady who was photographing and Twittering for the Downingtown Dish:

 Above: A place-saving caricature...

Below: In the act of caricaturing Allison herself.

As always, thanks for having me, and I have as much fun as my subjects!

Update 5-7-12: Here is a link to Allison's and Downingtown's Dish's album of the event-I'm in a few of the photos!
Sunny Days 2012

13th century caricatures?

On my recent jaunt to Thailand to visit my son, I did see some caricatures here and there... however, on my return trip, which had a 4-day layover in southern England (it's probably an exaggeration to call four days a layover, but it was my Christmas gift from my Other Half) I didn't get to see any live caricaturists. Guess we just didn't hit the right places. But caricaturing might be a part of the skill set of the artisans who created these:

 They're some of the decorative gutter-spouts on Salisbury Cathedral, which has the tallest church spire in all of England:

Just amazing what people could do in the Middle Ages!!!

This photo was taken in the cathedral's  cloister, again the largest example of its kind in the land.

If you're an artist in Salisbury in the twenty-first century, here is your art supply store :-)