Caricature Express

I Like to take my time
I mean that when I want to do a thing
I like to take my time and Do it right.
Lyrics by Mr. Rogers

More than ever, I’m believing in that.
I can crank out picture after picture at a Party,
but I can also hit that 10 per hour request
when I take a litl more time to really look.
(I’d like to take All the time I’d want,
Really get into each picture
to peruse through pleasurable CreA-tivity,
but I’ve never seen a party handled that way……
I’m thinking now - would anyone like me to
study and observe - sustaaaaayned look - at the
Guest of Honor - following the Guest of Honor around all through the Party - instead of person pop person pop person?)

Anyway, here are some of the pictures I drew at Parties recently:

I think I’ve already grown again!

Dan, Elgin, and I met up with some other Artists who were traveling through New York - including Paul from England, Yuko, Kimmi, Kuni, and Taka from Japan, and Andy Urzua from CA !

Here are 2 Pictures that I calmly drew on my train-ride home - with No Predraw! Seeing the exaggeration and then representing it simply.

I am looking forward to tomorrow’s gig. And I’m excited about the plans I have for more growth of all kinds in the coming year.

Growth and Energy and Excitement - are all connected with each other!

Such Happy Times - Such Special People. We had so much Fun - even with the language barrier. Kimmi, for instance, spoke No English! Yet we connected, laughed, shared, skipped, and experienced stuff together. Wherever I’ve gone, whoever I’ve met, the People of the World can live together peacefully - if we treat each other normally. Respectfully.

Then, when I got home, I really enjoyed Creating these 2 pictures of the same person:

To Hire this Artist:
(516) 579-4706
optidust@gmail.com

In addition to all the parties I’ve been working, I’ve been doing a lot of Studio Caricatures too. Including the Political Scene - it’s so expected that it’s a Caricaturist’s place ~

Here’s one where I tried not to sway the voters’ opinions. A company that makes yummy Smoothies wanted to get people to vote for their favorite Smoothie - and it wasn’t clear whether people would be voting for Drinks or Political Candidates. At first I thought I was making a banner for them:

But then I was told that it was for postcards. And the client had all sorts of changes requested. I preferred my own color choices, but of course I delivered what the client wanted. Both my original design and this new design - they both have something different that’s good about them:

I was very fortunate when I was doing the Robeks job.
Because my web-designer was around,
and he taught me some neat things with PhotoShop -
such as how to use ‘Color Burn’ with the ‘Brush Tool’
(He actually did the Color on the post-card-sized Obamas).
So now my PhotoShop skills go way beyond ‘Paint Bucket’.
And someday, maybe someday, a Waakum Tablet
(I hear the Cintiqs are fun.)

And here are 2 recent gifts created from the information that
my client gave me about 2 men who were Retiring:

To Hire this Artist:
(516) 579-4706
optidust@gmail.com

Finally going through a pile of papers here
that have been on my floor since I went to
St Louis and California. (That was months ago!)
I like what I was into then - gotta get back to it.
Instead of focusing on Quickness - how fast can
I get something that works - I was focusing on
3-dimensionality and exaggeration.

Here’s a man that I saw in the airport.
I drew him one time - it’s good.
Then I exaggerated more. More:

I also found a set of 4 pictures.
The first one - the plainest, most ‘realistic’ one
(as though a picture could be ‘real’ -
It’s just a real picture.
The person is the real person!).
Anyway, here it is:

Then I took a simple step at exaggerating her more:

Made the mouth area bigger, but to make it look even
bigger, I decided to smallen-up the eyes/cheeks.
You know, comparison. Something only looks big if
it’s next to something that’s small:

I didn’t like that one.
Losing something in the likeness of the woman.
I even remember her now.

It’s because I made her too angular.
So I had drawn her a 4th time.
And this one was goooood:

At least in my opinion.
In my opinion, I think that that 4th picture
is the best of this group.
But it depends on what you’re looking for.
It’s been my experience that some people
like to see the big exaggerations
because they want to have fun.
But other people prefer the first one (which is easiest
for me to do) - because they want to look
‘normal’. Plain. Like everybody else -
where nobody has anything different (as though
that was possible - how would we recognize each
other??). Or they prefer the first one because
that’s all they’re up to in their Artwork.
They remember trying real hard to make a picture look
realistic. And not having pursued that goal, they
don’t know how easy it is to simply apply the
techniques - things like shading and basic face proportions.

But to people who know how to do that already,
to us, it’s so easy it’s almost academic.
So we are more interested in seeing the artist’s
interpretations. Sometimes deep statements,
sometimes just fun because we don’t honestly know
the people that we’re drawing.

So just for fun, I’m also posting this other picture
that was in the pile:

To Hire this Artist:
(516) 579-4706
optidust@gmail.com

I was really on it today. Had a lot of business stuff to cull through after doing some real intense Yoga head-shaking, so there wasn’t a lot of time to really develop some finished pictures. But I knew it unquestionably. I knew that I understood exaggerating. And how to draw what I see. Just didn’t have a lot of time to do it. But I am There! A leap from struggle and learning to MASTERY!

Here are a few quick ’scribbles’ that show my understandings.

In the first one, I revisited a color technique that I had been so pleased with before (but I had lost touch with it for a while.)

In the second one, I easily saw and developed the clean line-art to be as 3-dimensional as an overworked-shaded thing.

In the 3rd one, there are people that I drew while waiting in line at the phone store. What I like about them is that I was really seeing the Caricature, where the movement was, before drawing. So I had the qestalt in my mind before I even put the pen onto the paper. I was so There today.

Nothing too serious in these drawings. None of them are ‘finished’ But it doesn’t matter. I have nothing to do with them. They’re not Commissions. They’re not anybody that I know. So there’s no reason to belabor them. They’re just here to remind us of Real Art.

To Hire this Artist:
(516) 579-4706
optidust@gmail.com