Caricatures on two wheels!

Sometimes, by pure coincidence, I get different clients who will order similar things at the same time. Last week I had orders for a man on a motorcycle at the same time as an order for another man on his bicycle. One is for Father's Day, the other is a graduation gift. That they are going the same direction is coincidental because the direction is based on the angle of their faces in the photos they sent me.

(click to see larger version)

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Live Caricature Comparison

Sometimes I take photos of people holding their caricatures at gigs to have a record of the drawings I do, however, often the people hold the picture with a different look on their face than what I saw when I drew them. At a recent gig I drew Dave, and he posted his drawing on myspace and sent me a link. From his photos, you can see the expression that I tried to capture.

You can see that I exaggerated his long face shape and mouth. I think I also captured his far-away eyes! Considering that it was done in about three minutes, I think I did a decent job with this one.

Let me know what YOU think!


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Latest gig photos!

Yesterday I worked an all-day, nine hour gig for Verizon Wireless. I worked from 10 am to 7 pm with only a five minute break to grab a snack. Yep, no bathroom breaks! No lunch break! Someone call the union! haha But I had a great time and really enjoyed some fun people and good drawing.

I've posted photos from that gig and other recent gigs on my facebook page here: My Facebook Fan Page Please check them out and if you haven't done so, become a "fan" to get updates and exclusive offers.

Here a couple of photos to get you started...



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Wrestling Day

Last Saturday I worked at the annual Tournament of Champions wrestling tournament. It was an all-day affair where I was there selling caricatures for $10 a person from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm. I had three pre-made wrestling bodies to choose from (and one cheerleader body) and put the heads on the bodies. For five bucks more you could get a custom body (I did five of those), and for three dollars more, I'd add color (I did several with color).

I've done this tournament for over a dozen years now, and this was probably one of my weakest years ever, the worst in a decade and maybe even the worst ever. Part of it was the change in the format of the event, and the venue was quite different. I was set-up in a different location, and that may have contributed to the slow day as well. I really don't know. I'm wondering how much of it was the economy, how much of it was my location and what, if any of it, was the clientele.

It didn't seem that there were many people that complained about the price. There was one mother with two daughters who said "is it 20 for two?" and walked away when I said it was. At the point she asked that, I was willing to give her a discount just to get someone to draw, but she left so quickly that I didn't get the chance. But other than her, there didn't seem to be people balking at the price as much as there were just kids that wanted to watch and not get drawn and people who just weren't interested at all (not even looking as they went past). I did have several people upgrade to color, so the ones that did get drawn didn't seem to mind spending a little extra.

It's very disappointing because I put a lot of effort into new signage and turned down another job and put aside some personal things to do this event. Combined with last year's Arts Fest numbers being down, this has been a very rough year for me as far as retail is concerned. These are really the only two retail events I do, but they are usually big money-makers. Unfortunately at a time when I need it most, the money is just not there. :(

The good news is that I have recently booked a few all-day gigs that will pay me a "day rate" which is a maximum I charge for a day's work. The first of these comes tomorrow when I will work for nine hours for Verizon. This should make up for some of the "lost" income from the weekend.

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Please become a fan!!

Attention all friends, family and art fanatics! I'd love to add you to my facebook fan base which will allow you to receive updates on when I will be drawing live in a public setting, offering a sale or when I've added new artwork to view. If you have a facebook page, please go to the link below and click "become a fan" at the top of the page. If you don't have a facebook page, feel free to join up! It's free and a great way to network with others.

Click here:
Caricature Art & MORE! facebook page


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Portrait time

This week I worked on a portrait to be given as a Mother's Day gift from a father to his wife. I really enjoy doing portraits, and wish I could do more!

(click for a larger view)

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Little Joe

This week I did a couple of new bodies for an old head. Well, it's a very young head, actually, but I had drawn two year old Joe, the mascot for Virginia's Cheers Sports late last year, and will probably keep doing new bodies as the need arises. Below is the original drawing and the new situations.

Original:
Updated versions:



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This week's art-- web caricature and pencil portrait

This week I was commissioned to do a digital caricature for a fellow blogger. You can see the drawing as she used it in her blog here: http://lindaslongview.wordpress.com/about-the-long-view/

(click to see larger view)

I also completed a pencil portrait of the daughter of a regular client of mine. She gets an updated portrait each year of her daughters. What a wonderful way to record your child's growth!




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Digital art without the color

This week I had two last minute commissions for digital artwork. One was for an invite cover and the other was for t-shirts. This first one was for an accountant who was having a retirement party.

This one came in at a time when I was doing my taxes, so I was in the right mental state for it... I had originally put a calendar with April 14th on it, a bottle of "Pepto" next to him and beads of sweat coming off of his head, but the client made me take those out. So much for trying to be funny... but I guess they wanted him to look like a "cool accountant". haha




This was for the t-shirt. I really didn't get the dancing card and dice thing, but that's what the client wanted, so that's what I did. I'll try to make anything work for a client!




Bonus art! I did this one of a certain R/B artist. It's a monochrome-- I scanned a pencil drawing and then converted the gray lines to a brown color digitally, and put in a background shape to give it depth, but also to accent the shape of her face which I see as being long and pointy.





all artwork ©2009 by Steve Campbell. Reproduction without permission is prohibited... and THEFT!
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Fun sketches

Some sketches from last week.

A couple of celeb drawings from my sketchbook (yes, I started actually drawing in a book instead of on loose leaf paper):

A few sketches from "artist's photos" found on the web:

all artwork ©2009 by Steve Campbell. Reproduction without permission is prohibited... and THEFT!

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