Street Caricature

He came all the way from Singapore just to get caricatured.
Shortly after this was drawn it started POURING down rain and ruined the rest of the money making day!

TOMOSAN!!!

This is a quik caricature of Japanese Caricature Artist, Tomo. You can see his fantastic work by clickig on the sidebar.

and yet ANOTHER self caricature

Caricaturing myself is an open ended ongoing project that I never seem to tire of. This is my latest rendition of myself. I drew this caricature with a....gasp...SHARPIE marker!!! no self respecting caricature artist does "decent" work with a shapie, but.... this came out surprisingly good. I even drew it on cheap drawing paper!

Color Subway Sketches

Today I pretended that I was drawing these people at a paying gig. I did them in color , some on colored cardstock and loved the results.

Famous Sidekicks, Barney Rubble, from the Flintstones

I'm one of the contributing artists on "ARTJUMBLE" (see the sidebar) where we are given a weekly challange to participate in. Last week, the assigment was to draw "famous sidekicks". Barney Rubble, Fred Flintstones pint sized, wise cracking neighbor, came to mind immediately. I didnt want to draw the character, of course in Hanna Barbara's style, and added my own flavor to it. The site is definitely worth checking out and JOINING. It will definitely keep you drawing.

Artist Spotlight Joe Stanton

Ask any caricature artist who there artistic influences are, and you';ll be likely to hear names like, Mort Drucker, Hirschfeld, Chuck Jones, Jack Kirby,or Hanna Barbara mentioed, and rightly so. Many of us were first introduced to art through Mad Magazine, Saturday morning cartoons, and marvel comics which we copied with an almost religious intensity.
Few people will admit that they were influeced by
Archie Commics.
Especially if you were a guy..... I mean GURLS read "archie"
I have to admit, that I shyed away from ADMITING that I read my sister's Archie comics but the truth is that I got some of my first drawig lessons from trying to draw the Riverdale gang.
But it still wasnt cool to admit this.

Fast forward to 2008, and the past Mocca Fest Comic Con. I was passing by Joe Stanton, an Archie Comics artist, who covinced me why I should be readig Archie comics.
"Jughead and the Archie gang have a new look" he said, and then he opened up his portfolio and my eyes popped.
I might just start readig Archie again.
Joe has updated their look to a more contemporary style, and Jughead is actually falling in LOVE!
Check out the seires I know I will be.

Draw 'em Pretty... or ELSE!

As any party or retail artist knows, we walk a tightrope between doing the caricature we WANT to draw, and doing the caricature we NEED to draw if we wat to bet paid.... here is a cartoon illustrating that which will be appearing in an upcoming Issues of Exaggerated Features Magazine.

Union Square Caricatures

Lots of fun today in the sun. Used a very simplified style and drew with a Fat Crayola Marker.

HOT Asian on the R Train

Hot as in, the weather! I aint taking about sex appeal here! Today was a very humid day in the city and the heat was wet and sticky. Even in an air conditioned train car it took more than a couple of moments to cool off and stop sweating. I spotted this hot asian man in the corner whose hair doo had completely gotten out of control due to the heat and had a look on his face that said, thank GOD for airconditioning!!
He easily was my funiest sketch of the day.

The gabby Subway Duo

These two guys boarded the A train this afternoon and literally didnt stop talking for the majority of the ride. It was hilarious to see how animated they both were. They were so into their conversation they didnt even notice me.

Finally some Subway sketches

Been a while since I uploaded some subway sketches. These are mostly me investigating line quality and sketching casually with the pencil. Not as intense as my usual modeled sketches but sometimes I like to take a break. These were found in one of my MANY sketch books I foud while doing some summer cleaning.

Spotlight on Kenly Dillard

I had some fun drawing with Ken Dillard in Central Park one day. Ken Loves to use watercolors over his pencil sketches, and to my dismay, sometimes the customers prefer his paintings to my my prismacolors and pencils.

Spotlight on Steckley!

One of the greatest things about my job is that ot only do I have fun everytime I go to work, but that I get to see some of my favorite artists, like Ed Steckley, here, do their stuff. Ed and I worked the same gig recently at the M&M's headquarters on W 49th street and Broadway this week. At the end of the gig I managed to snap off a few shots of Steckley slamming his last victim of the day. Ed drew with such speed ad cofidence that I barely had time to catch everything on film without interrupting his flow. Ed draws with the rattiest looking pencil imaginable! LOL its literally wrapped up in rubberbands and tape which just goes to prove it aint the tool, its the ARTIST! As Ive mentioned in other places in this blog, Ed is instrumental, along with Kenly Dillard for getting me inspired to draw the great pencil sketches you've come to know and love here on the surfer blogsite.


Steckley can be found HERE;
http://www.edsteckley.com/

Brooklyn Party Gig!

While most people were inside thankful for air conditioning, I was sweating it out in the hundred degree heat drawing caricatures for the folks in Brooklyn at a corporate event. These three minutes sketches were wearing me out!!

I've noticed that although, "good" I'm NOT getting the level of exaggeration I want on these drawings. Perhaps its the time factor. I feel a need to get "everyone done" so I have a tendency to speed up my process and just get the essential details down when doing a party sketch.

When doing party sketches Its really important that the person being drawn LIKES your rendition of them .You're being paid (quite well, I might add) to make the guests HAPPY, so you really have to resist the urge to "go for it" like you normally would drawing on your own. (thank God for my subway sketches! its a way to let the exaggeration demon loose.) I've actually been at events where I've put up my exaggerated caricatures on a sign and had people smile ad walk by refusing to get done. Do this long enough and people wont be calling you to do their party....

Knowing me I will probably revisit some of these faces too.

Caricature in Bryant Park

I was walking to the subway after coming from a gig at Deb's Family Disco, when i saw this lady swinging two objects called POI, around her body and head. If you dont know what Poi is, just imagine a two large balls attached to a long elastic cord traveling hundreds of miles per hour as you sing them in figure eight patterns around your body and head. This lady was obviously an expert at it and i stopped to watch, mesmerized. After she was done, I asked her why she was doing this and where she was from. She was from England on holiday, and wanted to take advantage of the ice weather, and attract attention, which she did, since we were talking. I asked her if she wanted a souvenir that people paid hudreds for and she agreed.

This is a three minute sketch.

The M&M gig

drew this exec at a recent gig where I had the pleasure of working with Ed Steckley, Garrett Bender, and Alison Gelbman. We had the task of drawing people like M&M Candy pieces! This guy had such a bland expression I couldnt resist drawing a normal picture of him as well as an M&M. My M&M shots didnt come out! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!