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)

Here Come the Clippers!

The 2013 home opener for the Clippers is this coming Thursday... I can't wait!   I will be posting new samples reflecting the new players currently on the team. Below is one of the new signees- Daisuke Matsuzaka. (aka Dice-K) 

The first month of the season is always a bit rough with the weather cooling off quickly after sunset or sometimes not getting above 50 degrees, but it's always great to be at Huntington Park even if I'm just watching the game from the left field corner with my space heater between my legs!

In it's fifth year of operation, I'll be making some changes at the booth. Because I end up drawing the same baseball bodies repeatedly, I'll be offering some preprinted bodies for the first time. This should hopefully lead to faster turnover and more volume. I also hope to have better signage and lighting to increase visibility.

Since I'm now established at the park, I have to look at ways to make keep the booth fresh and different for those who come regularly.  I'm also always surprised to find people who have been to games and haven't seen my booth!  Just about everyone who enters the stadium has to walk by my location (unless they have cheap seats in the bleachers or high class seats in the executive suites) but yet somehow there are people I've talked to who said they didn't see me. I can't be too conspicuous of course but I can't just fade into the scenery and expect to make money!

If you are in Central Ohio, I hope you'll come by and say "hi" to me at the ballpark! Even if I'm drawing someone, I pay attention to everything around me (including the game) so don't worry about "interrupting" anything.  Just say hi and I will be happy to see you.

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!

Gigs now and in the future

I had a busy weekend, but doing gigs is always fun!  On Friday I drew for an after-school "Fun Day" and afterwards for a 10 year-old's birthday party. In both instances most of the faces I drew were kids, but in that "tween" age group between 10 and 14. In my opinion that's the hardest age group (well other than infants!) because one slip of the pen and they look too old or too young. That's also an age when they are very critical and dramatic so it can be rough at times.  I made it though okay though because they were all great kids, and I didn't draw too badly.

On Saturday I drew for a charity function at a local high school to raise money for Children's Hospital patients. All of the people drawn were high school students, and all were in a great mood. It went very well, and it was for a good cause.  The organizer gave me some high praise afterwards as well which also made me feel great.

This weekend I will be doing another charity function at Capital University-- a Relay for Life event for the American Cancer Society.  I did this event last year and it was very heartwarming to see college students work so hard to raise money to fight cancer. One of the traditions they have is to light luminaries dedicated to loved ones with cancer.  It's a touching ceremony to see all the glowing candles lit and the students walking solemnly through the gauntlet representing the victims.

Other upcoming gigs include visiting a college campus for Spirit Week, an Easter Egg Hunt event for Jefferson Country Club, and my annual trek to draw for BGSU's Sibs and Kids weekend. April will be an exhausting month with taxes due, the start of baseball games once again at Huntington Park and a string of  late night afterproms! But "bring 'em on" I say!  Nothing gets one out of the winter blahs like drawing live caricatures almost daily!

Live and in color... Digital Caricatures!

One of the options I now offer to my clients is live digital caricatures.  These are really fun to do!  Using a laptop and my wacom tablet/pen, I can draw digitally in a live setting. The final result can be emailed and or made into a facebook photo or used elsewhere on the web. I also purchased a portable color printer that I use to print the drawings on the spot. I can also plug the laptop into a monitor or a flat screen TV so the drawing process can be watched from a distance.  Here's what my digital set up looks like:

drawing on laptop without monitor

Using TV monitor provided by client

And here are some of the digital caricatures I've done:

 

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!

A repost from my Facebook fan page...

Top Ten Reasons I'm Better Than A Photo Booth at Parties:
10. Claustrophobics aren't afraid of ME!
9. My pictures can be seen without bi-focals or a magnifying glass.
8. Ever see kids totally fascinated while gathered around a photo booth to watch someone getting their picture? Didn't think so....
7. My pictures get framed and hung on the wall. Theirs might get a week on the fridge before falling under it and spending the next 10 years with the dust bunnies!
6. The 60's are over... cramming people into a tiny booth is sooo old-fashioned! When I draw groups, no one gets hurt!
5. Everyone already HAS a camera on them these days. How many have an artist in their pocket or purse?
4. I can fix your hair and/or enhance your body. 'Nuf said!
3. I never flash at anyone. Promise!!!
2. Can a box with a camera in it tell you jokes or laugh at yours?
....and the number one reason to hire me and leave the photo booth at the arcade:
1. I COST LESS PER HOUR!!
Yup, photo booths start at a whopping $500-$750 per party *minimum* and go UP from there! With my new price list, I now start at $100/hour and still discount even more for charity or for longer events! Seriously, is this even a contest?

 

Back to bloggin'! (New websites for 2013!)

I stopped posting in my blog about a year and a half ago because I thought all I needed was my Facebook Fan Page to do my updating and posting of pictures. I was wrong. I need something more!

I plan to start blogging again because I realize that here I can write more, express myself a bit more and do more than post a few pictures. I'll still use the Facebook page to post things, but here I can write more than I can do there. I really don't have much time to write a lot, but I do feel the need to talk about my business and other things in life in a more expanded format.  I don't know if people will even read this, but who knows... maybe someone will. Someday. Hope so.

So here goes...

I recently went through one of the toughest times in my career. Since about 2006, the US economy has been in a free fall, and one of the first expenditures to go for most companies and families is entertainment and art. Since that time, many of the long time customers I have had, especially corporate entities, stopped having company picnics and Christmas parties. I've also seen the retail sales at the few retail gigs I do per year drop off just as dramatically. 

Gift caricature from this Christmas-- ordered by my sister-in-law

In years past, the month of December was one of my biggest of the year. I normally would have several gigs per week and often two or three per day on the weekends. Christmas gift orders started coming in mid-November and were only able to be taken until about the first week of December because I would not have enough time to do all the orders in time if I had continued to take them.  Agents called me regularly and booked me for large parties with multiple artists. Those golden days are now gone.

Last December I hit the low point for Christmas gigs and gift orders and I only grossed 40% of what I did in Nov-Dec compared to the same months in 2006, and that thanks to having some non-Holiday related work. On top of that, I had a very VERY slow January in which I made less than what I would have made working 40/hr per week at minimum wage.  Times are tough.  Really tough!  Almost didn't make the mortgage payment for Feb 1st tough!!

So I had to take a good look at what I needed to do to stay in business. In 2008 I opened a retail booth at Huntington Park to work during Columbus Clipper games. That has helped supplement my income, but it still hasn't made up for all of the income lost to the Great Recession. I've tried some advertising, a Facebook page and other ways to promote myself, but I'm disappointed with the results of those efforts. The phone just doesn't ring like it once did.

So I took a look at my competitors. I found that they were charging less than me. Now this is no surprise because of the top three competitors, all three have "day jobs" other than being caricaturists. They can afford to charge less, and I'm sure they use it as a selling point against hiring me. In the last couple of years, I've seen internet clients contact me for a quote and then go with one of the competitors regardless of quality, reputation, etc. just to save a couple of twenties. So in spite of working hard for over 20 years to get to thie prices I had, I've adjusted my prices to match theirs. No problem... I'll bite that bullet and hope to make it up on volume... after all, none of them can do daytime gigs.

But I haven't stopped there. I've updated the look of my website and have spruced it up with new samples and better cell/tablet compatibility.  I have also divided my three businesses into three separate websites.  Mail order caricatures and portraits will now be the primary focus of FunFaces.com, my live caricatures will now be exclusively handled through ColumbusCaricatures.com  and cartoon logos can be ordered through CaricatureArtAndMore.com.  I have also developed an alternate portrait site at Wix.com

But is the problem just prices and marketing?  I promote myself with business cards, stamping my drawings with my website/phone, having a web presence and a yellow page listing. I'm admittedly not great at tooting my own horn, but I do toot it!  However, it seems to me that the problem isn't that people aren't finding me, it's that people aren't even looking! If people don't hire any entertainers, even the best and most popular won't be doing well. I find that my competitors aren't doing well, either.  The top end clients aren't having parties and the rest are having boring parties!

So now I have my mission.  It's now my goal not to just promote myself, but to extol the virtues of live caricature entertainment. So many people say to me "oh, what a unique idea... I've never seen a caricature artist at a ___________ before!"  It's true, we are a rare breed. There are only very few nationwide can do this for a living and even fewer that are busy. And even if I worked twice a weekend every week of the year, that would still be only 100 or so gigs out of the 10,000's of the proms, grad parties, charity and PTA fundraisers, picnics, reunions, birthdays, sweet sixteen parties, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc that occur every year!  No matter what, caricatures will be unique and fun for any party unless 100 other artists crawl out of the amusement parks to start doing gigs.

So if you've read all the way to this point, please do me a favor... tell someone about me. Suggest having me draw at your company party, school function or friend's birthday party. Let them know that they can get a custom caricature done from photos to give to a retiree or a portrait drawn from photos to give as a wedding present, even if you don't live in Ohio where I am. I promise you won't regret it!

In the meantime, I'm going to start to more aggressively market the idea that you can't have a pARTy without ART!!  I hope you will join me in this effort as well.