60th birthday party...with an OH WOW moment for me

Saturday's second event was in the evening, in a private dining room of a trendy restaurant. My client was a doctor's office manager who pulled off a wonderful surprise party for her boss's wife...more on that in a minute. First, the OH WOW moment: here is my client with her two men---Alfred E. Neuman on the left, her hubby on the right:

Why Alfred E???

He's like family to her, she (a native New Yorker) grew up with him!!!

Her uncle, Len Brenner, is a former art director of MAD magazine, and often appeared in the crazy photography of Irving Schild. I have a book with two photos of him:

In MAD Art by Mark Evanier, Mr. Brenner is shown as the tomato-sauce spattered chef in a Contadina spoof and as a corn-flake eating band musician with an unusual cereal bowl. :-) 

She also said MAD's founder Bill Gaines was like an uncle to her as well, and nerd that I am, I got all excited at my two degrees of separation (is that right? ask Kevin Bacon) from someone who has had UNTOLD influence of generations of artists in many spheres...

Of course I told her that I had met quite a few of MAD's current gang of idiots. :-) 

Then it was on to caricature the guests at the party. The good doctor sat for one, you can guess his area of expertise:

That's his lovely wife next to him, the birthday girl...

and here are a few more.

What a fun night! Ya never know who you're going to meet in my line of work! :-)

Thank you for having me! 

Little Leaguers and their siblings

Saturday's first event was a Little League celebration that just avoided being rained on...so, the face painter, balloon twister and I were each able to do our particular thing for the kids under the pavilion.

Yes, I can (usually) draw kids who have been painted on!

Below: The lurking baseball player is their dad, who, according to their mom, has the uncanny habit of being there one minute and not the next---so his nickname is "Shadow". I love incorporating stuff like that in my drawings!

Happy Mother's Day! I know I did several drawings yesterday that were Mother's day gifts. :-)

Recent birthday digital commission

Happy ??th birthday, Granny! :-)

This is an example of my "Cartoon-style" digital work. 

Below: I took screen captures at various stages:

Kinda fun to see the progression!

College grad party

Sunday's beautiful skies were perfect for backyard get-togethers, including this one for a recent college grad, who had the cutest little cap:

That's her with her color caricature, and with her BF in a B/W one. Then I turned my attention to her family and friends:

When this mother-son combo sat down, they both told me they hated being photographed, so I was a little nervous. I knew if my drawing made HER laugh, we'd be fine...and although she tried not to,  she LAUGHED!!! :-)

Congrats to Danielle!

College coeds on a beautiful spring afternoon

By Saturday afternoon, I had caught a few hours sleep (after drawing til the wee hours at an after-prom) when it was time to head to a college street fair. I barely used any paper here because the students all wanted twosomes, threesomes and even a few foursomes. Check them out, along with a stop-motion video clip:

The third guy in this one showed up after I'd started the lower two, but I still managed to fit him in. It helped that he was verrrrrrrry tall!

Three pretty ladies!

Heh heh wow!

Ooh la la, another "world" themed post-prom...

...and they put me in FRANCE. Not for the first time ;-)

The really cool thing about this photo, is that (and I found out in a roundabout way from one of the moms) the can-can girl shown here was drawn with the help of a friend of mine from ELEMENTARY SCHOOL---who was also of an artistic bent. She sat next to me in seventh grade and we were always drawing pretty models with fancy dresses...so I guess we still are! Salutations, Dolores!

Speaking of pretty ladies, one of my first caricatures of the night was definitely NOT

 in that category:

But these are! (their pretty dresses had been exchanged for post-prom comfy clothes)

This school always goes all out in decorating.

 Even Grumpy Cat made an appearance as a photo op.

The girls' lavatory was done up as Bollywood/Hollywood.

And the boys' theme was Africa, complete with repainted-as-camo Barbie Jeep!!

In case you're wondering how the caricaturist got photos of the boys' lav, before the post-prom gets underway, the school allows the community-at-large to tour the facilities and see the wonderful transformation wrought by the parent committee. Kudos to them! 

Final pic: a really cute little cartoon that was hanging in my area....I always carry my beret with me, but I can't grow a mustache. :-)

Alistair and Etta..

My contributions to Traditional Caricature Art Contest (most votes I have gotten in awhile!) this week:

Alistair Overeem

and Caricaturama Showdown:

Etta James

Both done with markers.

BIG birthday party

My fourth and final event this past weekend was a double birthday celebration for a one-year-old and a nine-year-old:

However, it was definitely not your typical kids' birthday party; it included a banquet room full of people, a three-piece band, a belly dancer, and yup, a caricaturist: (that would be me:-)

I drew all the kids in two hours.

Here's a caricature reaction:

And a little bit of the party vibe:

The client's daughter had been drawn at a 40th birthday party I'd done a year or two ago, and used my contact info that I include on the bottom of every drawing to book me for this party.  :-)

Proceeding to a Post-Prom...

(which, luckily, had a start time about four hours after the end of my previous event) was no fun at all, as I crawled along in a horrendous construction-caused traffic jam that ate into my in-between-gig break. Took me over two hours to go about 30 miles. I listened to Nirvana and resisted the urge to text or check Facebook!
The night's theme was Time Machine, and the area in the school where three artists were to draw was called "What do you remember about the 90's?", so I had my Kurt Cobain caricature front and center on my easel:

And he was on me as well!

(now you know why I was listening to Nirvana)

My two colleagues for the evening/morning were the witty and urbane Gene Mater and the delightful Julie Borysowski:

Here they are before the students found us:

Kids finally arrived and we got down to business:

Below: Julie 

and Gene:

Now for some of my output:

Having done post proms for more than a decade now, it's startling to realize that this year's crop of high school seniors were born in 1995...Kurt Cobain was no longer even with us when these kids were born!!

Wedding Shower with a view

Saturday afternoon held the second of four events for me this weekend...a wedding shower, held in a lovely condo overlooking the city. The bride and groom were both there, and they asked for a beach theme---because they'd already gotten a wedding-themed caricature at Disney World.

The bride sat on the most elegant shower throne I've ever seen:

Their friends and family enjoyed what came out of my pen:

This foursome ended up in tears of laughter when they saw the caricature ;-)

Below: Two young ladies asked me to draw a lime Lyme-themed caricature to tie in with a 5k walk in which they will soon be participating, in Orlando, FL:

After having a light supper, thanks to the hostess, I headed to my next event..a late-night post prom.