Wrapping up 2013

   Here are commissioned pieces from the last quarter of 2013. As you can see, I was pretty busy! It was one of my busiest Christmas seasons in the last few years, which is hopefully a sign that the Great Recession is coming to an end. I also have had several commissions already in 2014 as well which I will post at a later date.

(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

   This is the CEO of Chiquita (you know, the banana shippers) He was on the TV show Undercover Boss, and is pretty famous around the Cincinnati area. That is his wife in the background and he is also a part-owner of the Cincinnati Reds.  He was speaking at a conference and the organizers wanted to honor him with a caricature gift.  Below is a group picture of the organizers of the conference, a gift for their work of service to organize the conference.  Below that is another gift caricature for the organization president featuring his family, engaging in one of their favorite past-times, skiing in Park City, Utah.

   I had a couple of different commissions featuring boats. The color one is a digital caricature given to a retiree featuring a certain type of boat that the man made from scratch. The other is a black and white watercolor given as an anniversary gift. 

   Below are some drawing featuring more elaborate backgrounds. I often get commissions for caricatures featuring an activity, but lately I've had several featuring a certain place. It's fun to play Bob Ross and paint landscapes, even if it is with pixels and not oil paints. Even so, I still whisper to myself about highlights on happy little trees and rocks while I do it... I just don't use a palette knife or slap my digital brush back and forth on the base of my monitor.

   This drawing was a present from a group of workers to their boss for Christmas. They call themselves Jerry's Angels and wanted to be doing certain things but still look like the famous logo from the TV show. It was hard to make holding grapes and eating oatmeal look like holding guns and doing karate, but I think I pulled it off.

   This caricature commission required me to draw a family feast. He didn't want them eating it, just a family portrait caricature around the table. It was done in black and white ink. Below is another family caricature of sorts... a wedding caricature! This couple ordered a black and white plus one color watercolor caricature. It was for their wedding gift table display and as a gift to each other to commemorate the special occasion.

   These are digital portraits done in digital b/w watercolor of two sides of one couple's family-- her side on the left and his side on the right. They printed out at 16x20" and were given as Christmas presents to all of the family members. (As you can see, one couple appears in both pieces)  I also learned that the drawing on the left was even more special because the lady at the bottom had died within the year of cancer. I was touched to learn her story in a blog post by a friend of a friend which can be read here:

 http://parksrecreation.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/she-crawled/

    A black and white digital drawing done for the cover of a family album. It's always fun to draw old folks and old cars!

   This was a drawing done as a series of portraits for a philosophy textbook. On right is the photo reference I was given. I had to bring an ancient sculpture to life, including adding pupils and giving him a "nose job". This is the second commission I've done for this publisher. My third was just completed this month and I will post some drawings from that group of illustrations soon. As usual, let me know what you think!

Retiring folks

Studio business has been slow lately, but I've busy with a lot of live caricature gigs and would not have had much time to do large projects anyway.  Things are getting back to normal in September, however. I've been getting some order inquiries for some larger jobs, so I'm looking forward to hitting the drawing board (and digital tablet) here in the studio again soon.

Here are my three most recent commissions. All are for retirees, one in Oregon, and the other two in Ohio. The Oregonian is for a retiree from a company that comes to me for gift caricatures on a regular basis throughout the year. His hobbies are woodworking, gardening, grandkids and... glassblowing! I think that's a first for me...

(click to enlarge)

This second one was for an 80th birthday. This one was for a returning customer for whom I had done a drawing of this man's wife about 8-10 years ago. This one was done in watercolor, which is becoming more and more rare with each passing year. Seems most of my work is digital, so I enjoyed working in a tangible media once again!  I just wish that my scanner could truly capture the subtlety of watercolors better because these scans never look as good as the real thing. (for instance, the blues in the sky always get washed out)

(click to enlarge)

This one was for someone leaving Proctor & Gamble (that's their headquarters in the lower left).  He had designed the sleeping bunny on the Pampers packaging and the ZzzQuil bottles. The client designed this concept for me, so I just had to supply the drawing skills. 

(click to enlarge)

Recent Artwork: June 2013

My most recent caricature pieces.... both are digital paintings.

For a high school grad (I guess his nickname is "Kloppy"...)

For a retiree from Dow Research and Development.

The cool thing about these pieces is that the second was a referral from the first... and the first was a referral from another!  Word of mouth is not dead!  I'm always appreciative of clients who recommend me and pass my name on to others.

I also did a couple of nice gigs at the end of June. One was for the candle makers for Bath and Body Works (fun group!), and the other was for ARC Industries-- an employer of the mentally handicapped. The latter is a gig I've done for the last four years, and it always brings me to smile several times as I draw some very special people.  Some are severely handicapped, some are only mildly affected. All are very appreciative and polite. Here is a picture of a couple that were drawn together. 

2013 Arts Fest... Back by popular demand!

On June 6-9th I drew at my 14th Columbus Arts Festival which was also my 20 year anniversary of my first Arts Fest... and it was good to be back!  Last year I was not "selected" as one of the 3 caricaturists at the event (yes, only three caricaturists for 400,000 people!) but this year I received a lot of great feedback from the new festival director. His leadership showed that he has a good grasp on what makes the Arts Fest great, and I hope to continue working with him for future Arts Fests.  Because of his involvement, I was able to be set up in a high traffic area that provided me with the visibility needed to have nearly non-stop sales over the three day weekend.

In a period of 29 hours I drew over 275 people, with over 135 of those drawn on Saturday. While that's not a record for me, it is in the top 5. (fifth, actually... haha)  I probably could have done a few more had I spent a little less time on each drawing, but I always want to do my best on each and give each customer the max for his/her money. On nearly every drawing, I referenced the Arts Fest in some way, which I believe helps promote the event which I value so much. I also cartoon the people's names on the drawings as well which I know some artists find redundant (it is their face, why do you need their name?), but I feel it adds a bit of a cartoony personal touch to each in addition to the caricature.

It is exhausting, however. My wrist/shoulder were pretty sore and my hand is still recovering (my thumb-tip is still numb... I don't know why that is), and most of that pain comes from the writing part more than the drawing of the faces, but for the cash I earn and the seeds I plant (business cards, caricatures with my website/phone on them) and contacts I make (I've already booked one gig from being there), it is WORTH the pain!

I don't do much retail festival type work.  I have the booth at Huntington Park and do an annual wrestling tournament, and last year did the Greek Festival, but that's about it.  The Arts Fest is by far the most lucrative weekend of the year for me, and it benefits me in so many ways. I also love it because I get to see and meet some great artists and see some friends who drop by and say "hi". This year I didn't have a ton of friends who greeted me, but I did see a few that I hadn't seen in awhile.  That's always nice.

One of those I got to see is a couple that has had a caricature from me at the ballpark every year since year one. They haven't been to the park yet this year, but when they saw me at the Festival, they had to stop by and get drawn.  I did a pretty funny drawing of them this time (I have to keep coming up with new original stuff!), and now that I know their faces, it was pretty easy to capture their likenesses.  If you're reading this by chance Sam and Suze, I hope to draw you again at the ballpark!  At least I know they will stop by and say hi to me when they do come out to a game this year.  Good folks.

I was so busy that I didn't have time to take many pictures, but here are a few photos:

 My set up on the corner of Bicentennial Park. 

Great location with plenty of traffic and access/visibility from all sides.

She had the most beautiful long nose... hard to see in the picture, 

but I loved drawing it. Here's a close up:

Another fun couple. Decent drawing.

Thank you USY!

   I've had a regular client that has ordered a caricature from me annually for over a decade. Sadly she is moving, and I don't know if the youth group she directed will continue to place orders to honor their seniors. Maybe... but no guarantees. Either way, it's been a good run!  Thanks Shani!  You will be missed!

Here she is holding the final senior class of her USY group (which they call BuckUSY, short for Buckeye USY).

This year's drawing shows the three grads on the red carpet, stars in their own right, and draped with the names of the universities they will be attending in the fall.  Medium is watercolor, on 11"x14" bristol board.

I drew the king!

I struggle at times to come up with something interesting to say about artwork that I do, but this time I have an actual back-story to a client worth writing about!  Earlier this year I received a call to do a caricatures at a Cub Scout troop meeting to honor boys who were "crossing over" to become Boy Scouts. The party was being held at this family's home. (they later had all the individual caricatures of the troop made into a group caricature, which is HERE)

After the event, I got to talking to the  den leader/homeowner/host. He told me that he had wished he had been in scouts in the town where he grew up-- Granville, Ohio. I said "what? I'm from Granville!  When did you graduate?" He had graduated the year before me. Turned out that he knew many of the same people I knew and that we probably passed each other in the halls many times, but I still had no recollection of his name. I went home and looked him up in the yearbook. Well, it turns out he was the prom king at my junior prom!  haha I guess I wasn't paying attention. He'd changed a bit-- no longer had the bushy curly locks of hair, and was probably taller than I remember. But yep, small world...

Last week his wife hired me to do a digital caricature for a birthday card/sign-in board for his 50th birthday (reggae) party, and here it is:

Creativity is WORK!

     "Time is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes." 

-- Kevin Ashton, "Creative People Say No", posted on medium.com, 3/18/2013

People think artists are simply "born that way". That they are "blessed with creativity" or "god-given talent" or "have always been an artist". Um... no. No one is born with a pencil in their hand, just like they aren't born with a wrench or a hammer or a calculator in their hands.

I will concede that being an artist requires a different mindset, however. Artistic individuals do indeed see the world differently, but not because they have different eyes, different brains, are left handed or whatever... it's a different perception based on a curiosity and a desire to break beyond a certain set of norms. They force themselves to do this. It doesn't come naturally. A creative person simply wants to do something different than what has been done-- to be original! They are not content with a checklist approach. They have a hunger for seeing the unseen, knowing the unknown.

But this takes time. It's work!  People who think that creativity just  flows in one's veins or comes from some divine cloud will place expectations on artists to "just do it". "Here's my assignment, now give me something creative! Do it! Go! Gimme!!"  What's worse is these same people will undervalue the artist's work and expect it to be cheap or discounted or even free. "After all, you just do this in your spare time, right? " 

I saw a Facebook post of a bumper sticker that says "Artwork IS work!" I agree wholeheartedly. And that work isn't just the craftsmanship of moving the pencil or brush or mouse around to make a picture. There's mental work involved as well.

Last night I talked with someone who owns a food truck. He said that the logo he has on the truck is not what he wanted, but that the vinyl graphics company pretty much left all the work up to him. He had to choose the font. He had to choose the elements. The "designer" basically just arranged them to fit onto the truck and that was their "design". My friend also complained that every designer he's ever dealt with was that way-- they expected HIM to be the creative one. 

I explained to him that this is not how it should be.  A good designer should work to find out what the client's expectations are (what fonts they like, for instance) but also bring his/her own experience and ability to the table to mix into the stew. It's a cooperative effort. Both parties need to work together-- the client can't say "I don't know, just come up with something creative and I'll tell you if I like it or not" nor can the artist say "here's what will work for you, now pay up". By the same token, the client can't say "design it like this" nor can the artist expect the client to do all the work. 

I explained to my friend that when I work with a client, I try to get as much info from them as possible and then take that info to come up with really quick impressions-- things that don't take much time, but that narrow down the concept from generalities to more specifics. Once some common ground in the visions of the client and the artist is found, the artist can go into more detail and experiment. 

I'll usually come up with several designs that I will reject without showing the client before presenting him with three or four developed ideas.  I'll try to have elements in each that are completely different, not just present variations of the same idea. The client can then mix and match these ideas to come up with a final rough that we can agree on.  Once that is approved, I will then do the final cleaned-up design. 

Sound like work?  Again, to quote Mr. Ashton again: "Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work."  Here's an example of how I worked to come up with a logo for a Florida restaurant. The client wanted a fun dog mascot holding a hot dog. From there, I did some quick pencil sketches, nothing too elaborate, but I also did several that weren't sent to the client as well:

 The client chose #8. He liked the idea of making him the cook. 

I then did some minor variations on that drawing:

 

From there I did some color and background variations:

 

Then came type ideas:

The final artwork:

May commissions (so far)

Some of the recent stuff... been getting some black and white orders lately, but I have more color digital drawings on order that I'll be doing starting today.

I just completed a family caricature for a Mother's Day gift.

I had another project that I worked on which I posted, but was notified by the corporation that any interaction we have is confidential and that I had to immediately remove the pictures and reference to their company from this blog. I'm not sure why some drawings of their company officers would be a secret or somehow compromise their company's brand.  The drawings didn't even have their logo or product in it! They just showed some of their officers doing carnival related activities to promote their upcoming company picnic. I don't get what the big deal is, but so be it. But I am just impressed that someone actually looked at my blog!! (I think they were one of two... I, myself, being the other)



Oh well, back to work...

A few gigs, a new drawing... now the real fun begins!

This year's Tournament of Champions (wrestling tournament, Apr 19-20) was the most productive in many years. Maybe people are getting used to the recession?  I don't know. But I was busy for most of the 8 hours I was there and many people were paying the color upgrade fee.  In the past few years the retail side of my business has well below previous years' amounts, so maybe this is a good sign!

This gives me hope for... the Arts Fest!  After sitting out last year, I was given word that I will be back to draw at the Columbus Arts Fest 2013 on June 7-9th. I also received very positive feedback from the director of the Arts Fest on my samples as well.  This director has had experience with caricature and portrait artists and seemed to be quite interested in having quality street artists at the festival.

I also drew at a bar mitzvah, a senior center and a high school prom over the last week.  But after having today off, I will be drawing every day for two weeks solid starting tomorrow with a two day trade show, several Clippers home games, two parties, a picnic and a prom and and afterprom rounding out the schedule. But I want to encourage anyone in the Columbus area to come out to a special charity gig I'll be doing on May 10th at Olentangy Liberty High School-- Relay for Life. It's a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and I will be drawing from 6:30 to 9:30 that Friday evening.

Last week I did another digital caricature commission for a lovely family in Midland, Michigan.  The joke in the family is that Grandpa tells the grandkids that the "Whippy Dip is closed", so this joke was incorporated into the drawing.

(click to enlarge)

April showers bring Mo' money!

Well, opening day for the Clippers was rained out... then the next night it was cold and there was hardly anyone there... then the next day was even colder so I didn't even bother going. But then we had two days of good weather before the game got rained out again!  That's the retail game for ya... but it was good to get the booth set up and ready for what I hope to be a great season.

While the team is out of town for a bit I've been trying to catch up on studio work. I get to be a homebody for awhile, which is nice, however, that will be short lived. This weekend is Wrestling Day (the Ohio Tournament of Champions) where I will work Friday night and almost all day Saturday doing retail for a youth wrestling tournament. Then Saturday night I am drawing at a bar mitzvah. That's 16 hours of work in the space of   28 hours. Ouch. The Clippers come back for a couple of days and then I have another week without nightly games to do studio work before I start a stretch where I'm working almost every day for two weeks straight and 15 out of 17 days!  That stretch culminates in a tripleheader day where I work 10-1 pm, 7:00-10:30 and 11:30-3:00 am! Whew! April 26-May 11th will be a real workout for my poor lil' ol' drawing hand!

Here are some of the drawings I've done in the last couple of weeks. More to come soon as I have orders in for groups of 6, 8 and 6 + a dog! (that's 21 if you're keeping score!)

For a bar mitzvah sign-in board 

(packaged with gig this weekend)

 

Watercolor for the United Way

 Digital drawing for website

 Digital painting for retiree.

Digital painting for retiree. 

(same company as above)

New Websites, New Art!

After a really slow first few weeks of the year, things picked up nicely in late February and into March. It was hard to have almost no work for a few weeks, but I didn't sit idly by...  I spent the slow time reworking my main caricatures from photos website (FunFaces.com), creating a cartoon logo website and adding a new website for portraits. Please click these links and let me know what you think!

I also did some cleaning of my hard drive and office. I still have lots of clutter on both fronts, but I did delete/throw out stuff that has been piling up for years since I rarely have time to do deep cleaning beyond picking up my loose papers or putting my pencils away. I wish I had time to do more, but I'd rather draw and paint!

Now the dust has cleared and I've had several orders come in and several gigs, so I'm back to playing catch-up, including with this blog! Here are some of the most recent pieces I've completed for clients:

Color digital painting for retiree who painted his own Model A Ford. 

Digital color painting for a co-worker who was leaving the company and had several interests.

Watercolor painting for Ohio State Medical Association's out-going president. 

 As usual, questions and comments are more than welcome!

Cub Scout Caricatures

My most recent commissioned piece... done for a Cub Scout pack that was about to transition to Boy Scouts. I had drawn everyone live at a party, then took copies of the drawings home to scan and create this digital piece, placing all the heads I'd drawn live onto bodies done in my studio. I sent this digital piece by email to the den leader and he made printed copies to give to each boy. They were surprised and thrilled!

Digital caricatures

Here are a couple of digital caricatures I've done recently. I've been practicing with digital media to improve my technique. I'm feeling more confident now with the tools and am getting results more to my liking.

Here are the latest...


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Phat Daddy's Car!

I posted some of the drawings I did for Phat Daddy's Pizza back in April, and here are some pictures of the drawings on their delivery car. Very cool! (thanks Roger!)
Note: I didn't do the tomato.


I will be drawing free caricatures at Phat Daddy's (15 First St, London, OH) on Monday 11/29 from 6-9 pm for their customers. I've done this for several years now. The drawings are posted on the walls and just about every nook and cranny of the place is covered with drawings I've done in previous years. It's great fun, and even more fun to see some of the kids that I've drawn numerous times through the years grow up before your eyes in time lapse caricatures.

I'll try to get photos of the walls to post here. I never remember to take my camera to that gig, but this year I'll try to do so.

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