Caricature Express

This post continues what I was writing about on March 10, 2009.

What is sexy? My client said that her logo didn’t have to look like her, but it should look ’sexy’. “What does that mean?” I asked her. She said she would like me to draw long eyelashes and pouty lips. Here’s the picture I created for her guests to sign on the mat at her Launch Party. Along with the reference Photos that I was working from:

And here’s an extra picture that I sent - because my client suggested midway through the project that I color the skin brown. After we discussed it, she decided to give me free-reign to create the piece, but I played around with it anyway. There are so many decisions that an Artist can make.
So many different ways to express her visions:

The client said that she loved the drawing. But, she continued, “I have one request can you go a little easy on the lips for the one you are emailing me. Can they be more like I’m kissing someone!” (She had ordered two pictures. One to be displayed at the Party, and another to be used on her website and business-paraphenalia.)

“Oh!” I thought. “Oh! Perhaps ‘pouty’ is just a word to describe what we’d actually See if we saw inside a soft kiss!”

“And maybe, Maybe” I thought, “We Interpret any eyelashes as being Long when we slow down so much that we’d actually feel those little things with our eyes closed.”

Maybe it has less to do with the thoughts that might causes Pout Lips and Long Eyelashes in our platonic interactions than
it really has to do with Sensuality - the physical feel of Pouty Lips and Long Eyelashes.

Here’s the Digital version that I designed for the new Spa:

Whew - It’s not easy to be an Artist. I really have to go through all that soul-searching from the sorts of things that people say to me. I also have to relive my life in comparison to the Parties that I go to. What was I like when I was 13? What was I like when I was 21? Am I generous enough now? Do these people have better relationships than I have now?

All that - Real Art. From my heart.
It’s important that I feel okay about it. So I can go on. I’m so glad that I get responses like I got after sending this one. The client wrote to me (paraphrased):

It has been a pleasure! I’m so glad you’re into my life.
Thank you so much! I so much appreciated this.

Too many words lately.
I’m glad I have some Party Pictures to Post.

As much as I want to make sense out of everything,
it is so much easier to:

Don’t think, just see.
Don’t think, just feel.
Don’t think, just draw.

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

What is ‘Sexy’? What does it mean when
a client asks me to ‘make her look sexy’?

I recently drew a logo for a woman who is opening a new Spa in Brooklyn.
I’m not going to post it here until after her Launch Party, but it made me wonder about ‘What does it mean when a client asks me to make her look sexy.

I think I figured it out. At first, I asked my client what she meant.
“You know, long eyelashes….pouty lips….” she said.

Long eyelashes and pouty lips.

Why are long eyelashes and pouty lips sexy, I wondered. Does that mean that people with short eyelashes and wide thin lips do not have sex?

When are we sure to notice anyone’s eyelashes, regardless of whether or not they’re as long as the hairs on our……..? We notice their eyelashes when there’s high contrast - like very dark eyelashes against very light skin. And we notice them when they’re wet, sparkly - like when we’re about to cry.

And when does a person pout her lips? Make that oooh-shape (perhaps looking up through those long eyelashes)? Isn’t that when a helpless child can’t get her way? or is surprised?

So what is ’sexy’? Is it helpless? fearful? childlke?

Answer: ‘Sexy’ is whatever we Like.
So if a man is attracted to a woman who looks fearful, helpless, pouty, teary… it’s a power-play. He wants to ‘conquer’, to ’save’…..
And if a woman wants a man to overpower her…….

Some people are attracted to that personality. But some people like other personalities.
So why the common agreement to the ’sexy’ face?
Who will speak up? Me?

Must I delve into my psyche every time I hear that request? Is there time to figure it out afresh in the 5-minutes that I’d be drawing a face at a Party? How about - I just draw You - what I see - and You decide if you think that’s sexy. Do you like Powerful? Do you like Confident? Do you like Weak and Vulnerable?

I plan on continuing this idea when I’m able to post her pictures - after the unveiling at her Launch Party.

It might even be One Song
over all the World
AND OVER ALL TIME.
The past and the present.

That might be what the War in the Middle East is about.

I’ve been watching so many movies this year
that they’re starting to run into one another -
Like, one movie continues the previous movie.

My mind is working like that with this latest one.
Interesting to be watching ‘Across the Universe’
so soon after ‘Alexander’. One of the things I was
impressed with was ‘across the universe’. How anything
we say or do carries - affects one thing which in turn
affects another and another and another.

I understood that already on a personal basis.
But watching the movie ‘Across the Universe’ after ‘Alexander’,
I finally saw it on a greater scale.
That politics really do affect our little lives.

‘Across the Universe’
right after the song ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My World’ - In this movie about rebellion against the Viet Nam War.
Watching that right after quoting from the movie Alexander
(”The dream must exhaust us. They must die before they kill
us with their blasted dreams.) —

Both the altruistic and the selfish dreams of powerful people -
It made me think of how even their dreams
affect everyone in the world.
The dreams of the little people.
The dreams of the so-called powerful people.
Do you want to be mindlessly tossed this way and that
by the dreams of others? Or do you want to take charge
of creating this world that we are all living in?

Love is a gentler emotion than anger.
Love, kindness, simplicity - they’re gentler
than anger, greed, and hatred.
They have just as much power - If the people out there
can hear them over the cacophany of the fury.

And worst of all, most of what we know as love
is contained between two people (Or a small family.
Or our own group, religion, race, country….)
The ‘love only me’ and the ‘foresake all others’ that
our civilization preaches. So what really happens
with those softer emotions is that it
passes greed and callousness to everyone else
out there in the world. If a person who is deeply in love,
focused on his lover, uses others to get stuff to
bring to his lover. He might ignore the deeper love-needs
of everyone else.

Callousness to ‘other’ people doesn’t Just affect Their world.
It affects the whole world - the world that you and I live in.
Across the Uni-Verse. There is only One Verse. One Song
that the whole world is creating.

What to do? Where to go with this?
Please be nice to me. Really. About the things I care about deep inside.

One of those things is:
To accept everyone
no matter what they look like.
That’s one of the reasons I draw Caricatures.
To show everyone that they all look unique.
To be able to care and love people who might or
might not look like the ‘cool’ kid.
Real opportunity for relationships, wealth, and
meaningfulness in their lives - no matter what they look like.