Vincente Minelli Happy Brithday Caricature

Vincente Minelli is the Husband of stage/screen/recording Icon Judy Garland, AND the father of of film/theatre icon Liza Minelli
Jan gave this assignment for Feb 28th so Im actually one day ahead. Theres not many photos on Minelli available , but I can definitely see from the one i copied that his daughter takes after him. A great face, especially the eyes. i was really pleased with how this turned out.

Artists Spotlight on Niall O Loughlin

Dublin's own, caricature artist, Niall O Loughlin, is another artist whose work continues to inspire feelings of admiration, awe and jealously. His recent take on our new president is a departure from the "happy go lucky, always smiling" pictures that are often drawn of Obama, and shows another more human side. What mades a caricature great is the statement that an artist makes with their work and Niall's statement here is so slick and well executed I wont even TELL you what it is, but take your time and really LOOK at the picture and you will see.
More of his Brilliant work can be found on his website featured on the right side of this blog, but just in case you just cant wait to scroll down, you can find him at

http://nialloloughlin.blogspot.com/

Timothy Spall Happy Birthday Caricature

Actor, Timothy Spall, was todays Birthday target as assigned by Jan Obedebeek on the Forum site today. He's done a ton of films and is a terrific supporting "character" actor. I know him from the Harry Potter Films, and most recently from Sweeney Todd.
In this caricature, Im not completely satisfied, as i thought I made him look a wee bit "too good" , He almost looks like an overweight "Tom Cruise" here, looking at it again. In retrospect, I could have made him a little rounder especially in the cheek area, made the forehead a little broader as well. I will come back again to revise this for sure at a later date.

ANATOMY OF A FREELANCE JOB COMIX(based on a true story)

Been doing a LOT of in house freelance jobs lately, and after one particualrly "killer job" I decided to make a comic about it, as best i remember it

First thing I recieved was the deposit check and samples. The client overnighted it as promised, and I was confident they had followed my instructions to the letter. This was a massive twenty person caricature for a company poster and I emphasized that I needed good samples. To my horrow when i got into the studio i found these teeney weeney almost postage stamp sized pictures that were blurry and washed out looking. I thought my eyes were gonna roll outta my sockets to make them out. My Client had also given me a killer deadline. I called my client in desperation pleading for better pics, and also an extension if I was doomed to work with these. their answer was concise and immediate. I immediately got myself a pot of coffee on and went into automatic pilot, sketching erasing redrawing, ripping pages up, throwing them all over the studio..... Finally in the wee hours of the morning I managed to scan everything, photoshop held together and I scanned everything over.

The client loved them.

Peter Fonda Caricature Happy belated birthday

Feb 23 was the OFFICIAL day for drawing actor Peter Fonda on the NCN Forum site. Jan informed me that even though I missed the date I could still post, and Im glad, cause Peter has one of "those " faces caricature artists like to draw. That slicked back hair, aviator sunglasses, razor stubble and wolfish grin reminds me of Jack Nicholson... maybe they're seperated from birth.... who knows.

Dog days Comix by Subwaysurfer

As a freelancer, I spent literal days in my studio with no human contact at all, except for my trusty hound Butchie. This post is dedicated to him.

Humpty dumpdee aint the only one who had a great fall...

I recently fell down two flights of stairs in my house while wearing my slippers, and since they CAUSED the fall, now I TRUELY know why thy're called "SLIPPERS!" LOL! Im bravely laughing through my pain here, and as I was home healing I came up with a bunch of comic strips featring me and my constant companion, my dog Butchie here. Enjoy. I may feature some more of these from time to time....

Pat McMicheal Check this guy out

GRAPHITE ARTIST, no, it's not a misspelling of "GRAPHIC" I DO mean, GRAPHITE ARTIST, Pat McMicheal, is one of my guilty pleasures.

If you are a followers of my blog, you know how much I love to caricature in pencil, saving my MOST exaggerated work for that particular medium. Pat makes me look like Im in the 1st grade rubbing the paper with my fingers in comparison. Pat's work is so gorgeous, you just look at his pictures and stare and stare... wishing you could do something CLOSE to that. He's one of the links on my blog, PLEASE check out his work and be amazed. Here's a sneek peek at what he can do.

Geraldine Chapey, Lew Simon, Glenn Di Resto, Mike Ricatto, Michael Ulrich Political toon for The Wave

Its a long title but I couldnt leave anyone out. This is my Biweekly cartoon doen for The Wave on the upcoming special election. My first reaction was to have them all fighting it out slinging mudd at each other while they urged voters, but decided instead to make it more dignifired. It's time to take the dirty out of politics.... at least for this post.

You GOTTA LOVE YOUTUBE! This time out, I searched youtube to see if I could find any film on any of the candidates just so i could do a more accurate picture. It turns out that someone had uploaded a recent debate they had in Howard Beach which offered excellent footage from a variety of angles. How did freelancers EVER survive without youtube?!! what a great resource!Ed

Happy Birthday Matt Dillon!

Continuing with Jan's "Happy Birthday" series, today's target is actor, MAtt Dillon. Ive never drawn Matt before, and he's got such a great face that I will definitely be revisiting it to inflict futher damage on it. I remember him being a teen idol of sorts back in the day, but recent pictures of his suggest that he's been sparring a coupla rounds with ole father time....

Happy Birthday, Ruth Rendell!

One of my caricature artist icons, Jan Obdebeek started a fun "Happy Birthday" Caricature drawing series on the NCN forum recently, much to the delight of myself and other members. Each day, Jan posts the name of one famous person whose birthday it is, and challenges us to draw them before the day is over. Not only do we get an opportunity to see Jan's inspiring pencil work, but also in drawing the person of the day, build up a body of work that we can present to the world. Here is my take on Ruth Rendell

He should really work on his legs more

Im blessed that despite the economy people are still willing to contract me for work. A recent fan tuned in and wanted to surpise his bodybuilding friend with a caricature of himself making fun of his bodybuilding endevors. Being a former bodybuilding enthusiast myself.... er although you would NEVER guess that now looking at me...... I knew exactly what to draw. I suspected like most people who go into budybuilding there was a lot of emphasis put on developing the upper bod but not the lower.... one reason is because it takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTT of energy to do lowe body work and since we use our legs all the time you have to do major squatting to make them grow.

Here is the picture that his friend was both delighted and embarassed by!


THANKS JASON!!! YOUR CARICATURE IS COMING!!!

Dark and Ugly...

This "aging hipster" actually POSED for this caricature after watching me draw for a while. He was slowly losing his hair and was trying to be as "Punk" with his remaining hair folices as he could. Combine that with some Retro Glasses, a razor stubbled Jay Leno-ish chin, and black tee shirt and it makes for a pretty dynamic looking persona. Most people couldnt have pulled off this "look" but I had to admit, it seemed to work for him.
I took my time and did this with graphite, prismacolors and markers.

ANOTHER Wave Editorial cartoon!

This is another in an ongoing series of Bi weekly Editorial cartoons that I'm doing for The Wave Newspaper, that services the Rockaways, Broad Channel,& Howard Beach sections of Queens. For those of you who dont know what this is about, local politicians, are locked in a race for a coveted city council seat, in an upcoming election that will take place this month. In order to earn a place on the ballot, each candidate was required to accumulate a total of one thousand signatures from registered voters living within the district,before a predetermined deadline date. According to one candidate, Geraldine Chapey,(with the BIG hair) her political rivals, Mike Ricatto,(wearing glasses)Glenn DiResto, Frank Gulluscio.(with the great hair) and Eric Ulrich,(in the black suit) signatures are not valid, and they should be eliminated from the race.
I'm not taking any sides on this issue other than caricaturing the heck out of everyones face! This group of people were really fun to draw and I cant think of the last time I've truly enjoyed an illustration assignment more. The journalist who wrote the article as well as Howard, the editor of The Wave, loved the illo so much that it made the front page of the paper, something, to my knowledge at least , that has never been done before in the paper's history. Even if I'm wrong about this, it's still an honor for an artist to get this.

Brooklyn Jewish in da House! ...

I caught this tough guy staring into space and knew by that LOOK that if anyone stepped to him they'd be missing some teeth. I used to live in Crown Heights where a lot of the Hasidic Jews live, or "THE BROOKLYN JEWISH" as I called them, and believe me, these guys aint no wimps! They're just as tough as any street punk. I guess they HAVE to be since they're style of dress makes them easy targets for a lot of jerks.

Midnight Train to Manhattan

I cant get enough of reworking this sketch I did here a few posts back of the solitary woman with the big boots on the train. My heart went out to her I guess because she's like so many women here in the city who have to travel the trains alone at night and risk encountering undesireable people. She definitely had her game face on, as I recall, and those BOOTS! Let's just say you wouldnt want them to connect with a certain part of your anatomy...

Chua on THIS!

Just left Crazy Chris Chua's blog and found this pic he did. Chris' already outrageously exaggerated caricature style is continuing to evolve as his pictures get deliciously darker and more exaggerated like this one here, of fellow caricature artist, Nate, who is himself another abstract caricature Jedi Master. Do yourself a favor and follow the link I have on Chris to his blog. But make sure you're sober when you look at his pictures. You just might puke on your monitor!