Thursday, May 17, 2007

The Vernon

I am an aspiring freelance caricature artist, and Wednesday night was my debut to the scene. I bumped into this interesting fella at a local show (Ultra Pulverize, do a youtube search, they ROCK) who told me that he owns a local bowling alley. I asked him if he might ever need a caricature artist, told him my rates and he said to come down Wednesday, so I did! Had my younger brother Evan along to assist, and everything went beautifully.

The place is called The Vernon, and it had an amazing crowd of happy, friendly, enthusiastic people who really had fun with the caricature idea. The owner Dale took a bunch of great photos which you can see at The Vernon myspace: http://www.myspace.com/vernonlanes


^This desk I'm using was a groundscore! I was walking home and saw a guy carrying what was obviously a drawing table. He was gonna trash it, so I took it off his hands, cleaned it up and voila!! A perfectly sized, portable caricature table! Gonna paint it up all colorful and put my name and number on the front :)
^These girls wanted to look tough, straight, and awesome . . . they definitely made awesome faces for me to capture!
^Bud! Don't often get an opportunity to draw such a greeat face and magnificent moustache :-{

^Mandy and Graham. Rock those dreds!
I think this was my first pic of the night :) This was actually my first real caricaturing event since last summer at 6 Flags. I felt a little rusty at first, but I got back into the swing of things quickly.


^ She said, "Make it really crazy and funny!" and she kept licking her fella's neck sooo . . .


All in all it was a great night, I got to interact with my peers in a unique and interesting way :) When you are drawing someone's face, you automatically develop a relationship with them . . . I have to stare into their eyes, which is an intimate thing, so I have to be able to put people at ease so they don't feel TOO uncomfortable. I didn't talk much at this event, only answered questions and thanked people when they complimented my work, but I did keep up a rapport with my subjects by making faces at them :)

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

first drawings!

So I love to draw and doodle. I am ppretty absent-minded when it comes to scanning and uploading though, but I am gonna do my very best to upload interesting sketch pages and whatnot here, as they come into being.

This Saturday past, I left my apartment in historic Old Louisville to find a perfectly intact, perfectly dead specimen of Procyon Lotor on the curb. Yes, the common Raccoon, which just so happens to be my favorite animal for various, somewhat spiritual reasons. It felt like an omen, and I carefully carried him up to our back porch, where I later returned to do some "life" sketches. I felt privileged, in the sense that I had never yet had the opportunity to study one of these nifty creatures so intimately.

I love filling sketchbook pages with coony critters!

This last fella is an older drawing, colored in photoshop. Thought I'd throw him in here coz he's cute :)