Have Fun, and DONT BE LATE!!

I did this illustration to accompany an article I wrote for Exaggerated features magazine on gig "do's and dont's " The pic didnt get published (the article did) but i thought it was pretty funny, and yes, its another caricatue of me!

Labor day caricature

This is one of the most interesting faces i did yesterday. The customer didnt get THIS sketch its purely for my own enjoyment and study. I will expand on this later and improve it. He has dreadlocks that almost reached his ankles in the back and reminded me of that creature from the movie, The 5th Element, (you know, the blue one with the dreadlocks? If you dont know what im talking about, rent the DVD) when he put that cigar in his mouth I KNEW I had a Classic drawing!! My only regret in doing this was that my sketchpad was toooooo small and i had to put the cigar on the next page.

sweet caroline

Subway Caricatures at Summer's end...

You can feel it in the air.... it's getting a little cooler out, the trees are just starting to turn color....the faces of children are growing sadder as the faces of parents are growing happier..... yep... Sumer's at it's end.... and its been a great one. Learned a LOT this year about this art of exaggeration that has become my magnificent obsession...Today was a good day to draw and I wante4d to take my time once again with these pencil sketches that took about 30 minutes each to do, but the results was well worth the effort. The first guy has a lower lip that reminded me of a diving board. When I spotted him on a downtown A train i thought he was pouting for some reason, then realized after a few minutes that his lower lip really DID stick out like that..... and then there's the gentleman i call "mr. Head... or Headquaters...... I sweat this guy had the most mis shapen head ive ever seen... it reminded me of a sweet potaeto.. I stuck up a conversation with him and realized that he had some sort of mental disability with this slight physical distortion.... oh well, it was STILL a great caricature! Finally there's the lady with the headlights for eyes... You gotta wear sunglasses just to look at her!!

42nd Street Caricature Artist FAKERS Exposed

New York City's 42nd Street, also known as Times Square is the "Mecca" for Caricature Artists. Tourists from around the country flock by the thousands to this historic location in search of bargins, broadway shows and, of course, great Caricature Art. The competition for sapce out here on the street is fierce, but if you are one of the lucky ones to get a coveted spot here, you will make a small fortune as tourists literally run to your chair as if commanded by some unseen force. Yep, you can make a LOT of money here, alright...
Funny thing is, you dont even have to KNOW how to draw caricatures really well to do it.

Take for example this "artist" here, he's a regular on 42nd street, and there are many like him... Chinese, I mean. In order to make a living on 42nd street it seems you "must" be Chinese or at least Asian. for some odd reason the police seem to take delight in harassing anyone else who tries to set up here BUT Asians, and even if you are lucky enough to get past the cops,you have to deal with the Asian mafia who will LITERALLY threten you with bodily harm if you dare set up in thier designated spots...... yep, been there, done that.. but thats another story, let get back to this "artist" here...

If you look at his blk and wht drawing in the 2nd level , you might notice that his picture, although "ok" (im being generous here) doesnt seem to match the highly exaggerated samples he's dislaying on his stand in the background... not that this matters to tourists who jump in his chair without even questioning why their picture doesnt match the sample whown, which incidently prompted them to stop at his stand in the first place. Its a crime.... and the one thing about crime is that sometimes it hits close to home...
One day, fellow caricatue artist, Kenly Dillard, looked at his stqand and noticed something familiar.... if you look at the third set of photos (the one with "Mr. Bean's head) You should see a variety of female sketches that dont quite fit his drawing style or that of the Mr. Bean caricature.
THOSE picture sketches were lifted directly from the site of my other "partner in caricature crime" Alison Gelman. Alsion's work can be seen by clickin on one o9f the links i have on my blog on the right side. Whats outrageous about this direct steal is that it was lifted from her website. These arent even her BEST sketches, according to Alison, and I even remember some of theim in particular. Again, this is a crime.
So the next time you see this artist, maybe it would help to yell out FAKER! whenever you see him try to draw someone.

Good Hunting on the MTA Today!

Definitely a good "hunting day" today. I bagged a coupla live one on the 35 bus today, in route to a gig. I was in the mood for pencil today and took my time. Glad I did, because the exaggeration is perfect. I did rough thumbnails first and copied those and looked up every now and then to see how I was progressing.

New Color images

The first image is the caricature I WANTED to do at a gig last year of a client from canarsie Brooklyn. I didnt know how she would recieve an exaggerated version, but I always wanted to do one like this here. I also reworked a pic I did of a Frat boy who wanted me to do a massive 25 person caricature poster. This guy had such an intense look that I KNEW I wanted to slamm him at a later date and well, the date came yesterday. It never fails to amaze me how the buys in Bay Ridge Brooklyn CONTINUE to hold on to that 1970's Saturday Night Fever, Tony Monero Hair Doo like this greaser is sporting here. LET THE 70's GO!!!This final shovel faced gurl is a picture that was hidign in my sketchpad. I dont remeber if I copied this from another artist or actually drew it myself but its still a good pic, so I decided to use it.

Family Affair

I recently met up with my two brothers, Clyde,(top pic) and Howard,Bottom pic) at the funeral of our Uncle George, who passed away recently. Even though it was a solemn ocassion I just couldnt HELP snapping some shots of my two siblings with the intention of clowning em both later! heh, heh! Ive never done by brothers before , so this was big fun. I also did myself, in the middle again.

Color street caricatures

One boy one girl both exaggerated. Really like the coloring on these too.

Sean Gardner Revisted

My basement is flooded, my gas wont turn on, I got a leakey fridge, and Im totally pissed off. Perfect time for drawing a caricature. I re did Sean's pic today and the results were fantastic. I guess I have to be pissed off to do a really exaggerated caricature. did one here is EXACTLY the picture I had in my head before and couldnt execute. Sean's face kind of reminded me of a boot. Dont ask me how I came to THAT conclusion, but visualizing that shape really helped pull this together.

Scribble scrabble ... or one man's mess is another man's gold...

The NCN is about to have their annual Convention, and Im sorry not to be attending this year. With two kids in college the financial burden is just to great this time to justify it.... sigh.....
One of the things I will miss the most is throlling threw the garbage to get the discarded scribbles of fellow artists to get an idea of what they were thinking when developing a drawing.
A scribble can tell you a LOT abotu how an artist breaks down the features of a particular subject, and Im always fascinated by the various approaches. I dug these two gems out of the trash last year after the "speed competition" where we all are given permission to scribble out recognizable caricatures in seconds. I put "flesh " on these scribbles although I dotn know who they are supposed to be anyone know?

Its all about the hair.....

This dude here has some SERIOUS high hair action going. As I was sitting sketching him I wondered if he combed his hair with a rake or some other garden instrument. He also had this evil grin that was was kinda "1970's serial killer-esque" The characters you see in New Yawk City... like no other place in the world....

my apologies to Sean Gardner

I set out to draw one of my favorite caricature artists, Sean Gardner, and for some reason literally crashed and burned not only on the likeness, but on the coloring technique as well.

I started out KNOWING what I WANTED to do with this face, but as sometimes happens in caricatue drawing, I got so excited to draw the picture, exaggerate the likeness do the coloring perfect that I commited the sin of letting my Left Brain do TOO much thinking and I crashed and burned. In order to do GREAT drawing you have to take an almost zen line apprach to a face. Just draw the face... dont get excited, or unexcited about it. Just look , draw, see and let it happen... I KNOW this makes total sense to all you caricature artists out there.....One of my favorite books of all time is "Drawing on the right side of the brain" which goes into this right brain drawing concept brilliantly. If you havent read it, I highly recommend it to ANY caricature artist.

.......Okay, commercial break is over...

I thought about NOT posting it, but then re thought it again. Maybe it's important to not only show great caricature but also horrendous ones, like this. Its part of the whole process of being and artist, and no matter how good an artist I think I am, I always gotta remember that Im only as good as the last picture Ive drawn. Sean If you are looking at this, my apologies! I will do another one!

In my defense, I WAS rushing to draw this. My wife wanted me to take out the garbage or walk the dog, or something..... Just goes to show you that good art doesnt just "happen" and cant be rushed! it takes TIME!

Subway Caricature of man who looks like moby dick by subwaysurfer

Theres something in the construction of this guys face that was sort of "whale like". I nick named him "Moby Dick " as I drew him It helps to do that to sometimes get in the right comic mood. I also colored this on the train using a new method for laying down color that I recently learned from Chris Collins. The result looks more life like in my opinion.

But the color combination ...it does look kinda like....raw meat.

Blast from the past....

Found these old caricatures i did in 2006 on another site and decided to post em here. I think its great to see how much Ive progressed> I was just starting to do exaggeration here and did a lot of full body stuff too.The first one was a gift caricature of a businessman who was a little too busy. His co worker, who hired me, explained that he was the type of person who worked so much that he literally slept in his office(hence the pillow under his arm), that he survived on pots of coffee, and loved fine wine, and for recreation he played soccer. She also informed me that as busy as he was, he was somewhat disorganized, and always had papers in disarray and sometimes lost things like his briefcase. I love it when a client gives me a LOT of information so that i can formulate an effective gag for the gift caricature. I dont always get an opportunity to use each particular quirk, but this time It all fit. When doing gift caricature people rarely want something super duper exaggerated, but just enough to make it fun. Thats one of the reasons that i experiment with so many styles here from cartoony to semi photoraalistic exaggeration. Its great to have a big toolbox that you can go into to fit a particular project.
The man with the glass was someone I did at a labor day party in 2006. Everyone at the party was super rich super snoppy and trying to not have a good time! I drew this guy on the sneak.
The other two were drawn on public transportation. The Girl had HUGE round breasts that looked like they would literally pop as well as her round baloon like face! i thought the combo was hilarious. I just may draw her again in my hyper exaggerated style to see how much funnier I can make it.

Some people are ALREADY caricatures!!!

At some point Im going to draw this guy, but MAN!!! he's already a caricature all by himself.This guy stopped to look at a fellow ventors table next to me at Union Square, and i held my breath as I was taking this picture, hopinghe didnt move. Glad he didnt.
This joker reminds me of a New Age hari Krishna Whitebread Rastafarian Urban Hippie.

Alien Homies

Ever wonder what it would be like if Aliens only access to American Culture was Hip Hop? These are two of the main Characters from a work in progress that explores that theme.

THIS is why I do this BLOG!

I's like to start off by thanking ALL of you people who tune into this blog for your daily dose of my scribble scrabble and ramblings.
I got a chance to experience firsthand the POWER of this blogsite yesterday afternoon while doing some street caricature near Central park. While drawing and sweating in the 90 degree heat, I got a call from Teenie Patterson, who, judging from the number, was from Miami, Florida. Teenie was in NYC on Vacation and was d;ying to get her caricature done but didnt know where to go. She called her sister, a frequent visitor to my blog, and asked her where she could find an artist. Without hesitation her sister suggested me, and since my number was on the blog suggested she call me and find me right away. She DID!!! WIthin an hour of calling, there she was in front of me being drawn.
Ive never felt so honored in doing a caricature before. It felt great that someone had actually searched me out to be drawn by me. That's Kenly Dillard, in the background.... We were both drawing at Central Park this day.

new street stuff

Im FINALLY loving the way im applying color on the street. here are two copies of pics i made recently.

er... forgot who this one is for.......

I mind just blanked out! I did this "Payback" caricature for this brotherman caricature artist who slammed me, and i forgot his name!!!!!! Hope he tunes in regularly and recognizes it. i did this on the street at a verrrrry slow time between customers.It was HOTTER than James Brown Eating Hot wings in Hell out there, so the caricatures face is melting..........

Doug Sterner (aka Doogle)

Doug is another fellow caricature artist who has that CHIN that you just wanna attack. Ive always wanted to do this gag at a live caricatue party but dont know how the person would react....

Pete Emslie

Just "discovered" this awesome cartoonist animator, Pete Emslie,
http://www.cartooncave.blogspot.com/
whose art and personality is reallly making a stir on the NCN forum. Thinis is my take on his face.

New Promo pages

I normally post these on my "hire me" site, but Im so excited about my new promo jpegs that I send to clients that I wanted to post them here too. I originally made these pages in Powerpoint, and was going to save the document as a PDF file to send to clients. I found out that Powerpoint had a save as a jpeg option so i was able to make each individual page as its own Jpeg. I believe the overall visual impact will be a lot stronger if clients see they specific type of caricature services Im offering on one page, rather than having to comb through a blog. I especially like that im demonstrating versatility with the art form as well. Caricature as Fine Art, Caricature as Entertainment art, Caricature as cartoony art. I hope the response will be positive.

I want to thank Fellow caricature artist, Alison Gelbman(she's the blong at starbucks in the live party caricature picture) for encouraging me to update my promo materials, a habit she does religiously.You never stop selling. As fun as drawing is, this IS a business, as well.