Marina-2

Ok- here's the redo of Marina, and she got back to me right away and said she loves it.
So that's a relief... Eventually it will be on her show with the history of the word, "Caricature". Look for it at www.hotforwords.com

Some more Park Caricatures

Here's some caricatures I did in the Park yesterday- captured with my cell phone (not the best way to take a picture).

Spike

On the forum of the International Society of Caricature Artists, there is a Forum where members post artwork, and Jan OpDebeek started a daily caricature of whoever's Birthday of a famous person it was, and Spike Lee was one of them.
So here it is.

More Park Caricatures

We get all kinds in Central Park, NYC; An Aunt/ Niece from Spain, 3 friends in good spirits from India, 2 girls from Texas, and my third couple who got engaged through caricature. She said yes, so it hasn't failed yet(I can't imagine if it did...)
Keep in mind some of these people change their pose a bit or put on a hat, etc. when I photographed them through my cell phone with their drawing- so it's not always an accurate comparison.

Marina

Here's a caricature I did of Marina the philologist, who saw the drawing I did of Jill Hanner and wanted one herself. She's going to put it on her show: www.hotforwords.com and research the origin of the word "caricature". I have a couple books which go into this, but I'm curious to see what she will find.
I have one other caricature of her which isn't finished, but which I felt captured her face better than this one. I'll post that eventually...

More Live Caricature

Here's some more live caricature- 2 from the park and 2 from "Faces and Names" (159 W. 54th St.) where I've been doing caricatures since they opened 11 years ago. I've been trying to go in once a week again, if they let me, and I just work for tips.

In the Park

This is the first year since Iˆstarted to go out to Central Park where I've gone out all year round. Anything over 34 degrees was fair game; I just learned how to dress warmer. Most of the time, I didn't bring my camera, thus the lack of entries to my blog as of late. However, I took this one with my cell phone- a nice couple from The Caribbean. They were not used to our cold weather here in NYC, but they were smiling all the same...

Brother-In-Law-In-Law

I think that's what you call your Sister-In-Law's Bother...and if not, that's what it should be. Anyway, that's who this is; he commissioned me to do his caricature for his website and after a couple of tries- this one being the last one, he decided to go with a photograph- just like a lot of magazines do. I offered to just give him the artwork, but he didn't want it.
At least he paid me some money...

Live party painting

This is a painting I did at a Bar/Bat-Mitzvah during the party in about 5 hours. It was my trial painting for the company- "Untouchable Events" and I'm going to do some more in the future. The challenge was to try to get some recognizable people in the painting even as they were moving. The light source was all over the place- constantly moving and changing color, so that was a challenge as well.
For the next one, I'm going to get photos ahead of time for the main people at the party and incorporate them in the scene.
This is acrylic on masonite.

Their hate has grown strong

Do I really need to say anything?

The answer is blowin' in the wind

This will be the last dog drawing I post here- the rest will be on my pet-blog at www.danspetproject.blogspot.com

I liked this photo of my old neighbor's dogs because they show absolute bliss in the simplest of things- the wind. We should all be so grateful.

The drawing is colored pencil and pastel pencil.

Another Kato

Here's my friend, Justin's dog, Kato again- this time more caricatured. This is his prize for the most comments on the blog in 2008. I'm also going to use the image along with the other dog ones (and one cat) to get more pet-work.
I already got one gig from the flyers I put up already, so I guess it's starting to work. It's a dog-grooming party in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Gobobean

Here's a caricature I did of my new friend, Jill Hanner- aka: Gobobean. She's on Youtube with her own channel, as well as a multitude of other online outlets. I still haven't seen all the video's she's done. YOu can see her on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/xgobobeanx From there you can get to her other sites.
I met up with her last week and gave her this drawing and she was really cool.
A couple days later she gave me an extra digital camera she had, cause I mentioned how I'd like to start shooting some videos... How cool is that?
I already shot some video of the James Jean show, and will try to get it up on Youtube as soon as I have time and figure out how to do it.

And the winner is....

Justin again- for the most blog comments of 2008. You win one drawing. I'll give it to you next time I see you.

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.