Airbrushed nurse grad commission

Last weekend, this newly graduated nurse received an airbrushed caricature from her friends:

Congrats to Mo! I had fun airbrushing those cheeks.

Caricaturist brain at work (or...check out the big brain on Emily!)

Recently, I had an fMRI---for the sole purpose of scientific research into creativity:

To be more specific, at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Dr. Charles Limb currently is in charge of a study on what parts of the brain are firing up as caricaturists draw. (His last study was on jazz musicians!) While lying in the tight confines of an MRI machine, I did what I do almost every day---looked at people and caricatured them!

 I was given a small pamphlet of close-up photos of various faces (all with neutral expressions---so that I wouldn't be reacting to any perceived emotion, which is a whole other phenomenon). The photo was on the left, a blank page was on the right. The drawing implement was....a golf pencil! The booklet rested on a small board on my lap, and I wore headgear with mirrors so I could see my hands (an MRI requires the subject to lie flat and not move the head.) 

A weird environment, to be sure, especially with all the clanking, buzzing noises made by the machine, but once I was drawing, I forgot about it. 

Each drawing had a time limit of under one minute, so it was really only a very basic gist of a caricature. They also asked for likenesses, not exaggerated, for comparison, as well as just to look at faces but draw nothing. 

My friend and colleague Sean Gardner was game for an MRI as well, and I was able to be in the control room as his took place:

About to be put to the magnet! The researchers used an audio tone to cue us to turn the page for each drawing, and Sean remarked that it sounded like "Tron racquetball"---they loved that metaphor!

 All we could see on the monitor was the back of the clipboard and his knees as he drew.

 How crazy it was to see Sean's profile and the innards of his entire skull!!!!! When I saw my own (top photo) it seemed beyond surreal-- and I immediately knew that my son is walking around with the shape of my cranium!

Above: More of Sean's brain during the procedure. It's going to be hard to wait for the results, which are probably a year or more in the future.

We made sure Dr. Limb was okay with us sharing our experiences at Hopkins on social media, and his response was "no problem!" It's the data and conclusions from this research that are proprietary until published in scientific/medical journals. Or on social media!

If you have sixteen minutes to spare, that link above to Dr. Limb's previous experiment is reaaaallly interesting.

Finally, the MRI technician had a caricature of herself (she said it  was done at a party many years ago, the signature said 'Laura') hanging in the control room... so she was a fan of our artform! :-)

Sunset on campus

One of my weekend events was an RA appreciation party at a local university. As it was a pleasant evening, I set up outdoors in the parking lot, next to the students' barbecue grill and beer pong (!) with a great view of the skyline:

Three-quarters of these young ladies are exchange students from London, so I got to enjoy some British accents:

This guy reminded me of another bearded, pony-tailed specimen I'd drawn recently at the same university. Click on link and and scroll to the video to compare!

 Some more happy RA's:

By the end of the gig, the sun was just setting, reflected in the skyscrapers:

... and then I was off to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant nearby for take-home to my Other Half. 

60th birthday party...with an OH WOW moment for me

Saturday's second event was in the evening, in a private dining room of a trendy restaurant. My client was a doctor's office manager who pulled off a wonderful surprise party for her boss's wife...more on that in a minute. First, the OH WOW moment: here is my client with her two men---Alfred E. Neuman on the left, her hubby on the right:

Why Alfred E???

He's like family to her, she (a native New Yorker) grew up with him!!!

Her uncle, Len Brenner, is a former art director of MAD magazine, and often appeared in the crazy photography of Irving Schild. I have a book with two photos of him:

In MAD Art by Mark Evanier, Mr. Brenner is shown as the tomato-sauce spattered chef in a Contadina spoof and as a corn-flake eating band musician with an unusual cereal bowl. :-) 

She also said MAD's founder Bill Gaines was like an uncle to her as well, and nerd that I am, I got all excited at my two degrees of separation (is that right? ask Kevin Bacon) from someone who has had UNTOLD influence of generations of artists in many spheres...

Of course I told her that I had met quite a few of MAD's current gang of idiots. :-) 

Then it was on to caricature the guests at the party. The good doctor sat for one, you can guess his area of expertise:

That's his lovely wife next to him, the birthday girl...

and here are a few more.

What a fun night! Ya never know who you're going to meet in my line of work! :-)

Thank you for having me! 

Little Leaguers and their siblings

Saturday's first event was a Little League celebration that just avoided being rained on...so, the face painter, balloon twister and I were each able to do our particular thing for the kids under the pavilion.

Yes, I can (usually) draw kids who have been painted on!

Below: The lurking baseball player is their dad, who, according to their mom, has the uncanny habit of being there one minute and not the next---so his nickname is "Shadow". I love incorporating stuff like that in my drawings!

Happy Mother's Day! I know I did several drawings yesterday that were Mother's day gifts. :-)

Recent birthday digital commission

Happy ??th birthday, Granny! :-)

This is an example of my "Cartoon-style" digital work. 

Below: I took screen captures at various stages:

Kinda fun to see the progression!

College grad party

Sunday's beautiful skies were perfect for backyard get-togethers, including this one for a recent college grad, who had the cutest little cap:

That's her with her color caricature, and with her BF in a B/W one. Then I turned my attention to her family and friends:

When this mother-son combo sat down, they both told me they hated being photographed, so I was a little nervous. I knew if my drawing made HER laugh, we'd be fine...and although she tried not to,  she LAUGHED!!! :-)

Congrats to Danielle!

College coeds on a beautiful spring afternoon

By Saturday afternoon, I had caught a few hours sleep (after drawing til the wee hours at an after-prom) when it was time to head to a college street fair. I barely used any paper here because the students all wanted twosomes, threesomes and even a few foursomes. Check them out, along with a stop-motion video clip:

The third guy in this one showed up after I'd started the lower two, but I still managed to fit him in. It helped that he was verrrrrrrry tall!

Three pretty ladies!

Heh heh wow!

Ooh la la, another "world" themed post-prom...

...and they put me in FRANCE. Not for the first time ;-)

The really cool thing about this photo, is that (and I found out in a roundabout way from one of the moms) the can-can girl shown here was drawn with the help of a friend of mine from ELEMENTARY SCHOOL---who was also of an artistic bent. She sat next to me in seventh grade and we were always drawing pretty models with fancy dresses...so I guess we still are! Salutations, Dolores!

Speaking of pretty ladies, one of my first caricatures of the night was definitely NOT

 in that category:

But these are! (their pretty dresses had been exchanged for post-prom comfy clothes)

This school always goes all out in decorating.

 Even Grumpy Cat made an appearance as a photo op.

The girls' lavatory was done up as Bollywood/Hollywood.

And the boys' theme was Africa, complete with repainted-as-camo Barbie Jeep!!

In case you're wondering how the caricaturist got photos of the boys' lav, before the post-prom gets underway, the school allows the community-at-large to tour the facilities and see the wonderful transformation wrought by the parent committee. Kudos to them! 

Final pic: a really cute little cartoon that was hanging in my area....I always carry my beret with me, but I can't grow a mustache. :-)

Alistair and Etta..

My contributions to Traditional Caricature Art Contest (most votes I have gotten in awhile!) this week:

Alistair Overeem

and Caricaturama Showdown:

Etta James

Both done with markers.