Mabelle and Kato

Here's a couple more dogs done on commission for some friends of mine. The drawing of the Pug is "Kato" for my friend, Justin and the Acrylic painting of the Hound Dog, "Mabelle" is for two of my old roommates- Becky and Eric. Now I might start a new business drawing and painting dogs.

Irena's Vow

This is a drawing I did for the director of the play- "Irena's Vow" to be given as a gift to his cast. It's the true story of a Polish woman who hid 12 Jews in the basement of an SS Officer's house during the Holocaust. I was fortunate enough to see the play and it was very well done.
This drawing is colored pencil and I did the majority of it yesterday (I didn't get final approval of sketches till late last week, and I had a couple of gigs Friday and Saturday, so I didn't have much time to work on it.) Nevertheless, here it is.

Dogature

So I did this party back in September just for Dogs, which I thought would be kind of fun, albeit challenging. I brought my camera along to photograph those dogs who wouldn't keep still (most of them) and I told the host that I would do this so I could draw those dogs from my camera WHILE I WAS THERE. In the middle of the party he had me draw human children instead for some reason, and then the time ran out on the party. I told him I would do a sketch of "Navy" the Birthday Dog and send it to him, since I didn't get to do him at the Party. About a week or two later, I get an e-mail from the host asking me where are all the other caricatures of all the other dogs at the party, and threatened to take me to court. Obviously, he mis-understood me, but wouldn't accept my logical explanation. I said I didn't even have photographs of most of the other dogs, but he didn't believe me. So now I'm waiting for a Summons to go to small claims Court, which will be a ridiculous case suitable for The People's Court, which I've been on before...
Anyway, these are some of the sketches I did on the train ride up to the party that day, and the final sketch of Navy that I sent to them at no extra charge. Think they appreciated that??

2 commissions

Here are the latest commissions of a couple with their respective Fathers in 2 paintings. They're painted in Acrylic.
I have to work on my lighting when I photograph; I'm getting hot spots as you can see.

Jan

Here's a better version of the scratchboard of Jan Neggers. It was generally dark in the room we were in, and it was hard to get good photos without the proper lighting. The flash just made it worse...

Jan thankfully sent me this scan. If anyone else I did has a better scan of the work I did of you, please send it along if you can.
Thanks!

International Society of Caricature Artists- North Carolina-2008

Here's one of did of the "ROCK" while standing on a chair above him (there were 100 drawings of him, so I was trying to change it up). A photo of me and Rock. One of me and some say my look-a-like- Steve Silver, and some drawings I did from his figure drawing for character design class. The interesting exercise was to study the figure and then draw from memory after she breaks the pose. The last photo is of our workspace showcasing Jason Seiler's great acrylic painting of George Lucas. There's a better copy on his blog.

Even more ISCA stuff

Here's some more- one of Seo Kim in brown pencil and brown brush pen (ignore the spot), one of Jan Neggers in un-inked scratchboard, and a photo of Fred Harper, Jason Seiler and Paul Moyse with me telling Jason's Brother-In-Law to push the button on the camera half-way to focus.

More ISCA Convention

Here's some more work from my wall. Each artist is given a section of the wall to display their work with a number. Then, throughout the week you try to caricature whoever you want out of the people there and then at the end, you are judged by everybody in attendance in a number of different categories. There is best black and white, best color, best cartoony style, best abstract style, etc.
The first one is of someone I drew from life while attending Joe Bluhm's advanced party caricature seminar. Don't worry, Joe, I was still listening. The second is of Mikey in Acrylic and the third is of Kamal from Singapore in scratchboard.

NCN(ISCA) Convention-2008

Just got back Sat. night from a long drive from North Carolina where I attended the National Caricaturist Network Convention- (now called more appropriately the International Society of Caricature Artists). It was a lot of work, but always inspirational and worth the trip. I was fortunate enough to sit next to Jason Seiler and Fred Harper during the convention who inspired me from a painter's point of view and helped me to push myself. I drove down with Paul Moyse and Fred Harper- both of whom are very talented. Paul also did a great one of me. Check these guys out and Jason Seiler from my links to the right. They are all award winners. Btw, the one in the cap is Jason and is pastel and the other one is Paul and is painted with Acrylics. More to come...

Neil Simon

This is the last caricature I did for the Profile Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, this is the first year that they didn't have the caricature on the cover of the program for the season. This is the back cover of the first play that they're doing. Instead, the managing director decided to put a digitized photo of Neil Simon's name on a building for the cover. Very lame. It's not my cousin's fault, though- I'm grateful for all the work she's gotten me over the years for their group.

Mihai Eminescu

Here's the last one- Mihai Eminescu. Colored pencil on illustration board with acrylic in the background.

Ion Luca Caragiale

Here's another one for the Romanian show. One more to go...

Nichita Stanescu

Here's the third of the Romanian personalities for the show in Romania. I have two more to do and then I have to send all of the originals in and hope I'm chosen. Either way, it will be in the show, but if I'm chosen, I'll get to go over there for free.

The only thing I wish with all of these, is better photo references. Sometimes you have to make do with what they give you. The web has very little on these people...

John Kascht's Rudy and Obama

Here's some great sketches John did of Guiliani and Obama of which were included in the video.

The Politics Show Opening at the Society of Illustrators

This was the opening of the show of Politics at the Society of Illustrators here in NYC (128 E. 63rd). It mainly featured some of the best caricaturists around, including Philip Burke, Steve Brodner, John Kacsht, and Peter DeSeve, amongst others.
Pictured here on top is one of me and my caricaturist friend, Glenn Hilario with the infamous Philip Burke- someone I've wanted to meet since around 1988. He was a nice guy- easy to talk to, and forthcoming about sharing his process. Here are some of his painting featured that night as well as a brilliant Sarah Palin by my old teacher, Steve Brodner. Steve also had his sketchbook on a pedestal so everyone could flip through it. There were also videos that he had made with the New Yorker called "The Naked Campaign" which were great to see again. Downstairs featured John Kacsht's work and also a video of him explaining his process. I met him as well and he was also a nice, down to earth fellow. I'll include one of the photos I took of his above...

Nothing can stop me now

This is the loft my friend Alex built over my drafting table the past couple of days. It's going to help with my storage problem in my work room/common space room. It also forced me to clean up all of the stuff I had on my table for years and now I can finally use it for what it's supposed to be used for. I nailed in a thin strip of wood at the base of the table with a cut-out area for my arm when I draw. I don't know why I didn't figure this out earlier, but it makes all the difference in the world when the table is angled.
I then put the Japanese shoji screen on the side to help enclose the space and help me focus when working. I just need to reorganize now and then get back to work...

Some more Park Caricatures

Here's some more caricatures from Central Park, NYC- a refuge for people in a big city seeking greener pastures.