Subway Sleepers.....keep snorin...

Its amazin how many people veg out on a moving train surrounded by complete strangers, lower their defenses and snooze.... better for me so I can catch em!
I actually wanted to give the Asian man with the pointed head this caricature for some reason, but he got off real fast at the Howard Beach Train station.

fergot this one..

Da pencil kid is at it again!!!

Booyah!!!!!!

Noze Job

Found an old couples sketch in my drawing pad. Apparently I thought the wife had a huge nose, and was a little domineering compared to her husband. I decided to really work on it and this was the result. This is one of those caricatures that REALLY piss people off at a gig!

Pencil caricatures series by Elgin subwaysurfer bolling

Basketball nose

ya know some black folk just have bigggggg noses! dont be afraid to draw em!

Bens party caricature

Here's the last caricature of the day I did recently at a party at Pangea Restaurant in The East Village. Lotsa fun. Wish I had more time to add details.... hmmmm, maybe I will!

Think of em like animals...

When ever Im stuck on how to exaggerate a subject I assign them an anmial. Which animal do they look closest to, and then visualize that. The first guy reminded me of an italian parrot smoking a cig, and the other a cuban chiwahwah doggie with big marble eyes Whether they actually end up looking exactly like that animal is not the poiint. This is one method I use to rev upmy funny bone.

My ugly mug ... AGAIN

For all you gunslingers out there who need a CURRENT picture of me to do , HERE it is... again. I posted this originally on this blog in 2006. Here it is again.
Post it on your blog and tell me so I can come lookin for ya!

Alberto Gonzalez(bert5693) Caricature

After calling my style "Badass" Fellow Caricature artist, Alberto Gonzalez(check his blog out HERE http://bert5693.blogspot.com/) asked-slashe-challenged, me to do his caricature. After going to his site, I found a face that was hard to resist!It wasnt as easy as I thought it would be though and took a couple of drawings to get it just right. Hope ya like it Al!
I drew this with a 6b woodless graphite pencil, a number 2,and a q tip!

Good hunting today

Man I was reallllllly in the caricature subway drawing zone today! I took me minutes to knock out these caricatures complete with shading once I had the predraws done. After pencil drawing for so long, I finally got a workable method down I think.... now I can start REALLY drawing!

those ears

Almost didnt capture this guy. He kept catching me drawing him and I literally had to do a quick gesture and then move away to another seat.

How could I resist those ears they stuck out like car doors.

Pencil caricature series Todays catch by subwaysurfer

fergot this one.....

I was riding the "L" train at 3pm. it was loaded with loud obnoxious teenagers and this guy was looking around suspiciously at them every now and then. He seemed really uncomfortable.

Feb 6 Do OVER!

I looked at two sketches from a previous post from Feb 6, and decided I could do it a little better by taking time on the shading and modeling. I really like the results.

Rush hour AM Rush hour PM

Im Red hot... the original

This is a picture I did of RED, the dude with the shades and all that hair pictured in the previous "Im Red Hot,"Post. I did this orignial post in the summer of him while he was waiting for the SAME bus that we both boarded just days ago. If he's checking this out, here's lookin at YOU red! I TOLD ya that you wuz a "character!"

Gerard Issac Bolling

Ive been LITERALLY drawing my son , Gerard before he was born. (as wierd as it sounds I actually drew a picture of EXACTLY what he looked like as a little kid while my wife was pregnant!) Gerard has one of those faces that artists love to draw full of expression and power. He's tall dark and handsome, everything Im not! (which is why its such a joy to mess up his face!!! heh, heh!)He left today to go on a college visit and I was missing him and decided to try my hand at a memory sketch. Roddie personally hates how I depict him in caricature, but hey! Im STILL his father , even though he towers over me....

Im red hot!!!

The dude with the glasses is a local neighborhood residnt, named Ray who looked over my shoulder while I was at the bus stop today drawing my picture of my son, Gerard, feature above. I recognized Ray's face from 3 years before when I drew him one summer and commented on what a character he was! He laughed, and talked for the next half hour about cartooning and animation, two interests he had. I promised ray that I would draw another picture of him, featured here, of course, and that I would track down the original one and give it to him.

While trading in my cell phone at the Sprint store, one of the workers walked in from his break and had the most interesting expression, I captured hi immediately and worked on it on my train ride into the city.
Im starting to use a blending stomp with my pencil work now and liking the nice "airbrushy" effect it has. What a satisfying tool, pencil is!

bakk to the pencil

Did these TWO GREAT sketches today and was so excited i could hardly wait to get home and scan them. The first one caught my eye immediately. SHe had this MASS of hair that literally hid her face from the side view. Evey now and then you could see her profile "peek out" from the mound of hair as the train moved. Her whole look had a geometric feel about it and I spent about 20 minutes drawing her from start to finish.
On the return commute home i noticed this yound man had a bulbous nose alost like one of the muppets, and very very tiny eyes. He was trying to look "tough" giving me the "stare" but ended up looking more and more hilarious. It didnt help matters that he had the WILDEST most untamed goatee I'd ever seen on a person his age.