'Live' Stuff .......

Yesterday saw yours truly thrown well out of his comfort zone. I did my first 'live' caricaturing show at a corporate event at the WACA in Perth. Sadly, in all the excitement, I only took the one photo of a caricature I did of a gorgeous 7 month old boy - who never sat still at all !

It was a great experience handing out quick sketches, that at home would have been destined for the shredder, to the gratitude of amazingly (to me !) appreciative people. 

Experienced all those things that people told me that subjects would do - eating, answering mobiles, holding conversations across the room. Did about 25 in the three hours which was OK - really only started to caricature in the last hour as the confidence grew and more middle aged blokes more suitable for 'the job' sat down. Started with a run of young lovelies - the worst beginning - make them gorgeous said Kelly - what if they already are !!!

Went with Mick Devine a local Perth caricaturist to get some tips and a feel for it - in fact my line was so steady I never saw any of his work. Got up after the quickest three hours I can remember with no aches and pains, which surprised me, I thought RSI would set in.

Mistakes - used coloured pastel pencils, a lot of them, sharpened both ends - they go blunt quick and don't show up too well. I did buy some Sharpies, which I liked, from Kid at the NCN Convention - they must dissolve in air cargo as I haven't seen them since I got home.

I tried to get too good a likeness - not wise at this stage - got visions of Joe Bluhm's caricatures. looked at mine - decided no one in this room, except me, knows who Joe Bluhm is !!! (sorry Joe) AND I'll never, ever use A4 size paper again - way too small - got a great face where am I going to put all the hair and cleavage !

Did I mention I enjoyed myself, my drawing may have been below what I normally accept but my patter was pretty good !!!

"Call that a big nose mate ?"

Colin Barnett Caricature

I finally finished the Colin Barnett caricature - threw away the gimmicky little body - I'm fairly pleased how it turned out despite being super self critical. Even typing this out I'm looking at the collar and tie thinking 'I should have done more there !'

It's part of an ACA exhibition running at the Ellenbrook Gallery from Friday 20th to the 21st of March. I have put it up for sale with all my proceeds to go to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

I also entered it with a couple of my earlier works that are not for sale.

I've also overcome the 'brush lag' problem in Photoshop CS4. When you have a Mac with more than 4 Gig of RAM you have to install a plug-in called VM Buffer, available from Adobe, to fix the annoying glitch. It also was in CS3 but Adobe don't advertise it or even have the plug-in on the install DVD. It's a dream to use now.

Check this out ...

I'm in the business of selling my caricatures, though I'm aware most of the traffic through my blog is other caricature artists from throughout the world - we all check on and are interested in what each other are up to. A wonderful international network.

On the weekend a Canadian caricaturist called in, left a couple of nice comments about my work, so I thought I'd check out his stuff, well, WOW !!!

I'm a big fan of Jason Seiler - his stuff is the sort of style where I humbly aim my work toward, with a bit of Kreuger, Jota Leal ( no he's probably a bit too stretchy for me !) and Jan Op De Beeck.

Well to cut a long story short check out this guy from Canada, Dominic Philibert, he's up there with them his blog is HERE. Enjoy !!

Oh if you're a potential customer come back here afterwards because he'd be VERY expensive !!!

Fluro clad bike riders ......

Just finished this commission of a bike rider for his birthday, appropriately dressed in the fluro gear and several pairs of footy socks in the pants - I've got the mountain bike in the shed, good one too, but it's shorts and T shirt for me - I know what I'd look like in the 'correct' gear. 

Do they make the baggy, more comfortable version for the 'fuller' figure ?

Victorian Bushfires

The tragic bushfires in Victoria have saddened everyone in the country. The appalling loss of life will lead to a lot of soul searching regarding the causes outside of the 'perfect storm' scenario. It's probably too early for that, we are all still numb from the magnitude of the disaster. But for the magnificent efforts of the CFA we can only theorise on how much worse it could have been.

I live on a bush block in the Perth hills, not unlike the countryside where this occurred, it brings at all home. Dig deep Australia.

I have had many emails and messages of concern from colleagues and friends around the world which I really appreciate. I live a long way from the fires, and the floods, though, some 2000 klm in fact so I've added a couple of illustrations showing both my location and the huge size of this magnificent sunburnt country.

A verse from Dorothea Mckellar's famous poem seems appropriate :

'I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains,

I love her far horizons,

I love her Jewel - sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me !'

You can find the poem in full HERE

 

........... these would make great 'T' shirts   " Call that BIG .... "

Colin Barnett WIP ...

The ACA (Australian Cartoonists Assoc) are having an exhibition at the Ellenbrook Gallery from 20th February until March 22nd. They asked if I could pop some work in, so I'm in the progress of completing this caricature of our Premier and State Leader Colin Barnett. Not sure how I'm going with a solid scene to place him in ... I'll work something out. The theme is fairly loose 'Heroes and Villains' so that can cover a broad spectrum !!

I'm also going to pop in a couple of my favourite 'oldies' Mick Jagger (baby boomer Hero) and the Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan (complete dead set villain) !

Mr & Mrs Fifty !

I had a little lull after Christmas - I thought 'uh-ho' here comes the recession but the old order book has filled up again and I won't need to get the begging bowl out until at least the end of April !!

I hope the class of 1959'ers prove as lucrative as the 58'ers when it comes to their 50th Birthdays. Here's the first two, a couple who share their 50th's in the same week - fishing and basketball fans.  

'Rocky' from New York

Another 'fun job' for a fellow member of the ISCA (International Society of Caricature Artists) - Rocky Sawyer who hails from New York.

Meanwhile in the jungle ....

Just finished a different commission for a client depicting friends from Africa in the Tarzan and Jane mode. The clients loved it.

Mr Obama ...

I'm not a great follower of US politics, it always seems very big on 'razzamattaz' and low on substance. I've never figured out what all the bunting, flags, balloons, money and rhetoric has got to do with electing the right man. The process seems far too 'Hollywood' to seriously produce a person who has such a big impact on the rest of the world.

Democracy at work eh ? 

Having said all that the new President does seem to tick most of the boxes, though I think we can probably reserve judgement until this time in 2011 - he's got a lot to do.

He has two big pluses with me - he's a Macintosh fan and also a left hander, in fact, of the last five presidents only George W Bush is a right hander. 

I've always found left handed Mac users such really nice people !!

Something slightly different ..

An interesting commission for a local speedway driver who wanted a poster size caricature of himself in his car. The car - and the bloody decals - took by far the most time. Interesting task which I've worked out for pricing if I get another one - which seems likely !!

All done in Photoshop CS4, I'm sure Illustrator would be the way to go but it was too much of a learning curve for this job. I downloaded the demo but it was too different from Freehand MX which I'm familiar with. Sadly Freehand is getting harder to handle and more buggy as it hasn't been updated for years since Adobe bought it and then cast it aside.

One day - when I get some time and money - the 30" monitor is priority one !!

Adam Pate - Caricature Guy

One of the great things about being in the NCN (National Caricaturists Network) is the worldwide networking of all members, about 700 caricaturists in total (could be more), there's always someone who will give you a hand if you're struggling with a job.

The other plus is we draw each other as 'warm up's' for other jobs - you can really experiment and do things that most clients don't request for the paying work !

This is Adam Pate one of the most active members, nice guy I met him at the Raleigh convention and did a pencil sketch of him which got a bit tied onto the paper size - computers don't hem you in like that !! Reworked the sketch in Photoshop.

Incidentally the NCN is renaming to ISCA - the International Society of Caricature Artists - doesn't that sound impressive !!

Couple of commissions ...

Couple of jobs to start the new year off with - I've got quite a few going through at the moment - maybe the recession isn't biting yet ?! 

Top one was for an oil exploration company - a young Irish engineers send-off - two day turn around, printed and framed. The lower one was for a Rail Freight company - a staff retirement - final print was A2 and framed - looked good that size. 

Happy 'victim' ...

One of the disappointing things about gift caricatures is the ' Thank you very much ' and out the door goes the framed picture - okay I've been paid - but it's really nice to hear how the final presentation went. Just got this photo back from one of the Christmas commissions - I'm really happy with the likeness and I know from the family this guy loved it !

New Panoramas .....

In October Nola and I enjoyed a fabulous cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean on the 88,000 tonne Costa Atlantica - it was brilliant and we're now big fans of this style of holiday.

 I took the opportunity to take some more panoramas - lots of 'em - here are the first two. 

The top one is Santorini in the Greek Isles taken from the ship, the bottom one shouldn't need a title !

I bought Photoshop CS4 last month, not a great upgrade I said at the time, for painting and my mainstream use - BUT - the automerge function for stitching panoramas has taken a huge leap so much so I've restitched all of my original panoramas. 

It even joined the old 'unstitchables' I could never get to work. Well done Adobe. Now just fix the paintbrush lagging or isn't a MacPro with 7 gig of RAM powerful enough !

A larger image of Santorini is HERE and the Pyramids HERE and if you click the magnifier is should double in size. The originals are over 1.2 metres long and just under 100 Mbyte.  ( I'm sure the small images used to link before - can't seem to do it now !!? )

Australian Gothic ......

My parody of Grant Wood's famous 1930 'American Gothic' painting - the client wanted his parents depicted as 'country people' outside the Casino. Client loved it, I'll await reaction from Mum & Dad !!

This will be the last post for the year - and I really hope each and every one of you has a great 2009. Thanks for your comments both on the blog, email and phone - it's an isolated existence doing studio work ( I chat to myself quite a bit - not a lot of sense there ! ) - I appreciate it !

A Merry Christmas to you all ....

All finished

.... here are four more of the finished Xmas commissions - very happy clients and that's the main thing !!

............. now for some golf.

Christmas commissions ....

Christmas is making up for that beautiful 7 weeks away - I have a target of finishing all the commissions by Friday giving me six days to get ready for Santa.

All the faces are done - about six little bodies left - seventeen in total and it's time to ho,ho,ho !

Pre trip and post trip is the busiest I've been - seriously encroaching on golf time - got 42 'off the stick' last week which was really good for me - ".... for 18 that's nice dear ?!!! " 

Painting on an iPhone

Busy with lots of Christmas commissions but was fascinated by this video of David Tessier using an iPhone to paint with ....... do that on your Nokia !

Thanks to my good friend Vin Altamore for the ' heads up ! '