Society of Illustrators Political caricature art exhibition

Man, its great living in NYC. The society of illustrators is just one more reason...

When fellow caricaturist, Dan Springer, (make sure you check out the blog here on my site, Dan is an amazing artist) told me about the editorial caricature artists exhibition featured at The Society of Illustrators, I RAN to 128 E. 63rd Street to check it out. Boy, am I glad I did!

The exhibition features some of the best caricaturists in the world, including Philip Burke, Steve Brodner, John Kacsht, and Peter DeSeve, amongst others. I especially enjoyed looking through Brodners sketchbook which was on display also. Words dont describe how awesome an experience this was, all I can say is that if you love caricature as much as I do You NEED to go See this!!

Tourists.............sigh.......Love em......Hate em......

love em or hate em, they are the life blood of a street artist's industry.... yep, Im talking about those annoying pointing TOURISTS who gawk and point and haggle, and walk right by your stand to buy a billion dollar trinket that your neighbor is selling. I love them. I Hate them. i have "millions" of these pics in my sketchbooks scattered throughout my house. I saw this one about to be thrown into the trash ( as a gesture drawing) and decided to develop it more. Glad i did.

..........and yeah....... they really are that dumb to keep their wallet in their back pocket....in New York.......

Mass Transist Caricature madness! Somebody stop me!!!

There are days on the train when the caricatures practically draw themselves! Man! if i didnt get paid to do this i wouls still do it for the sheer joy of capturing the souls of these people on paper!
I especially liked the tall black gentlemen on the bottom... he had the vibe of a certain presidential candidate.... maybe he was going for that look. I noticed also that with the small black fedora he had a frank sinatra or Run DMC thing going too. This is also my fave because he came walking by so fast that I had to do a very quick gesture drawing of him. As a result I gat this delicious mouth watering design that sort of pops.The Indian lady had eyes SO wide open I swear she didnt seem to blink. It was almost like she was a bird of prey looking for some rodent to pounch on.... Needless to say i didnt make eye contact..... This other dude had a head that looked like he was hiding another person inside it, and the chick with the glasses had this look on her face that said: Damn! i cant see! My prescription is NOT working!!!!


My tool of choice for all of these was a good ole CHEAP 0.7 Deposable Big Mechanical Pencil.... it AINT the tool people.....

My idea of Audrey Hepburn

The guys and dolls over at the NCN Caricature Forum are having a friendly Sept Comp to see who can draw Audrey Hepburn the best. In case you youngsters dont know who she is, shes' the "classic hollywood" prototype for beauty and grace is you happen to be a woman. Expressive eyes, high cheekbones, strong but delicate bone structure, and petitie frame. Most of the guys at the forum are so busy mooning over her that you can hardly get a decent highly exaggerated caricature out of the lot of em ( not that they ARENT drawing "bad" Pictures though) Having said that, I treid to make a go of it drawing my verson of what she looks like. To me she looks BAT like. EVERYthing is DAK and harsh on her IMP Eyes , lashes, hair... and here ears and sorta pointy to me. I dont know how good the likeness is, but I can honestly say that its my IDEA of what I THINK she looks like in my minds eye.

Missing My kids today...

Its a rainy evening here at home. Its quiet.... too quiet. i remember the days when the rooms were filled with noise, singing laughing joking music and dancing. All gone since the kids left for college Earlier this Month. i really miss my kids. Its too quiet. Their incessant talking joking laughing and bugging helped me to focus somehow. I really havent been as productive since they've left. It's true what they say. "they grow up sooooo fast". Note to all you parents out there. ENJOY them while they're young they grow up in the blink of an eye.

feelin political it is an election year after all

Not ANOTHER Phelps picture!

Better late than never. This is a joke that been running in my head ever since i saw Phelps make Olympic history. How does he keep the water out of those ears of his?

Two for one sale

a face so nice i had to do it twice. Spotted him on the R train on Saturday

Subway sketchbook surprises

Found these two hiding out in the ole book. I remember the girl in particular. She actually said to me "people pay ME to draw ME"(and refused to pose for a caricature) I clowned her anyway just for my own personal enjoyment. She was a very pretty girl and i proved th her that "good looks " dont mean squat to a great caricature artist with "evil intentions" That dude on the subway, I nicknamed "jeb" . He has this strong redneck vibe.

Kool Asian "gangsta" on the Subway

Sorry that this is so rough, but if I cleaned up the sketch it would really lose a lot of the raw energy I was able to get into it. I saw this Koooooool Asian dude lookin' totally "gangsta on the subway the other day. He had the cold , "i'll kick a bone out ya butt" thousand mile , Bruce Lee stare thang down pat, and just oozed koolness and menace. I did this quickly in pencil, tried to clean it up , but figured it was fine the way it was. I can remember on several ocassions how Asina people have complimente me on the way I depict them. "you draw us like individutalss" and NOT like the stereotype, I've heard them say. Little do they know that i was ONE of those artists who DID draw them like a stereotype! I learned to actually SEE them thanks to instruction from, Kenly Dillard ....once again...

Makin fun of Sean....again

Just "monying around" with Sean's great face again... MAN! I wish I was going to raleigh to clown him in person.... Hope you like this one sean baby! HA!!!!

Kenly Dillard is too ###&&** GOOD!

I have this "love hate" artistic relationship with fellow caricature artist/partner in crime kenly Dillard.Not only is he a great caricature artist, but he draws this "cutie pie" children's art that makes parent blush and go "awwwww!" as they start reaching in their pockets to give him dollars. This particular painting, done in watercolor was displayed on his street caricatue stand, and w2as so delightful that one patron brought it outright for 50.00 bucks.
I was green with envy but had to give the kid his due. Its one heck of a good painting, and it only took him ten minutes to do. We're both collaborating on a book thats coming out soon. I figured i rather have him as a friend than an enemy!
All jokes aside for those of you who dont know Kenly, Sketchoholic Dillard was the guy who trained me to be a street artist, and helped me with my exaggeration in the early days. But i have yet to do this "cutie pie stuf as well as he dows.

Sewer Ratt Vs Roach! Another great Rocketshark concept

This hilarious concept was thought up by Sean of Rocketshark Ringtones. Sean commissioned me to do a toon of a "superfight with a Conckroach vs a Streetwise sew2er ratt. This was crazy fun to do as sean wanted the "ring " to be a turned over box the ringposts some ciagrettes, and the ropes scotch tape. I got great art direction on this piece and it was a breeze to do. if only all art directors could be so innovative and helpful. Some art directors Ive worked with seem to want me to magically pull the idea from thier heads without ANY direction that only leads to a lot of drawing and frustration.

ANOTHER stupid caricature toon

This was part one of an illustration I did for Rocketshrk Ringtones company. the company has gone in another direction so this illustration never saw the light of day, but caricature wise I thought it was pretty funny.

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.