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.

BIG birthday party

My fourth and final event this past weekend was a double birthday celebration for a one-year-old and a nine-year-old:

However, it was definitely not your typical kids' birthday party; it included a banquet room full of people, a three-piece band, a belly dancer, and yup, a caricaturist: (that would be me:-)

I drew all the kids in two hours.

Here's a caricature reaction:

And a little bit of the party vibe:

The client's daughter had been drawn at a 40th birthday party I'd done a year or two ago, and used my contact info that I include on the bottom of every drawing to book me for this party.  :-)

Proceeding to a Post-Prom...

(which, luckily, had a start time about four hours after the end of my previous event) was no fun at all, as I crawled along in a horrendous construction-caused traffic jam that ate into my in-between-gig break. Took me over two hours to go about 30 miles. I listened to Nirvana and resisted the urge to text or check Facebook!
The night's theme was Time Machine, and the area in the school where three artists were to draw was called "What do you remember about the 90's?", so I had my Kurt Cobain caricature front and center on my easel:

And he was on me as well!

(now you know why I was listening to Nirvana)

My two colleagues for the evening/morning were the witty and urbane Gene Mater and the delightful Julie Borysowski:

Here they are before the students found us:

Kids finally arrived and we got down to business:

Below: Julie 

and Gene:

Now for some of my output:

Having done post proms for more than a decade now, it's startling to realize that this year's crop of high school seniors were born in 1995...Kurt Cobain was no longer even with us when these kids were born!!

Wedding Shower with a view

Saturday afternoon held the second of four events for me this weekend...a wedding shower, held in a lovely condo overlooking the city. The bride and groom were both there, and they asked for a beach theme---because they'd already gotten a wedding-themed caricature at Disney World.

The bride sat on the most elegant shower throne I've ever seen:

Their friends and family enjoyed what came out of my pen:

This foursome ended up in tears of laughter when they saw the caricature ;-)

Below: Two young ladies asked me to draw a lime Lyme-themed caricature to tie in with a 5k walk in which they will soon be participating, in Orlando, FL:

After having a light supper, thanks to the hostess, I headed to my next event..a late-night post prom. 

Redrum pencil sketch

Traditional Caricature Art Contest: this week it's Jack Nicholson. Click to see a Vine clip of my sketch.

College gig...starring Malcolm in the Middle!?!

This afternoon's event was situated on a university green, with bounce houses and bands and a caricaturist (my easel is over there, under the trees)

I happily drew student after student, accompanied to the strains of live music...

You can HEAR as much in this clip:

To my surprise, the students were all abuzz over the drummer for the band: Frankie Muniz, who starred in "Malcolm in the Middle" back in the 00's...he's grown up, but not upward ;-)
Even worse,  he might NOT be a giant..... (groan)

No, I didn't draw him, (although he would have been FUN---look at those TINY ears!) he had a huuuuuuuggge line of people waiting to get a photo taken with him. He wasn't  charging money for them to do so, which reflects well on him. :-)

After I wrapped up, I had a small commission to do:  a student wanted a caricature done on a cooler as a gift for her boyfriend. Gotta say I have never drawn (it's all marker) on a cooler before...it turned out to both our satisfactions! :-)

Emergency caricaturist to the rescue

Just as I was sitting down to dinner last night, I got a call from an agent whose artist could not make it to their gig RIGHT THEN at a local college...could I do it??

I made it there and was set up to go exactly an hour after the call. :-)

The students were happy to see me!

This young lady wanted her BFFs in the background.

Here's the young man in his entirety: ( awesome smile)

Even the security guard wanted one. I laughingly said I couldn't put "Class of..." on hers, and she said she had NO CLASS. So guess what went on her drawing ;-)

This was her reaction:

She literally gasped for air from laughing for several minutes after she saw it. Jeepers, I don't want to kill anybody!! (suffocation by caricature...)

Finally, as I was packing up, I noticed the room and halls were festooned with signs advertising that their get-together would have a caricaturist...it was my friend Mac Garcia from Texas!!!!!! When I told the client, he said he just Googled "caricature artist" for an image to use on his flyers and that's the one he liked!!

When I got home, my Other Half reheated my dinner for me. :-)