Old stuff

Here's some older paintings I never posted; The Beatles and Pete Townshend were done in 2001 for my friend in London, and I only had transparencies of them until a few days ago. The Lou Reed and the Roseanne Barr were done waaaaaay back in school in 1991. The Roseanne Barr was done in reaction to her singing of the National Anthem where she grabbed her crotch afterwards to mimic what some ball-players do. I don't think it was disrespecting the country- just a failed joke, so I was just showing the general perception in the country of what she did and how it was misinterpreted. I probably could've worked more on the body of this one, but I didn't have a reference... so I probably just got lazy at the end.

The Lou Reed painting was donated to The Riverside Church Weekday School's Auction for its Annual Spring Benefit to assist in bringing children a strong educational start.
It's going to do more good there than in some corner of my apartment collecting dust.

Anyway, I want to move onto some new work.

Faith

And the last of the Power Women.

Next is a new painting of Bruce Springsteen... but a copy of the one I already did.
Otherwise, I've just been busy with Gigs and other minor projects.

Lesley

Another of the Power Women.

More Power Women

They have the POWER!!!

A couple of these I might go back into... I'm just a little pressed for time.
Anyway, check out their website at http://womensvoicesforchange.org/
They do important work.

A couple of couples in the Park

I drew these 2 couple today in Central Park.

Power Women

Here's 3 of 9 Women I'm caricaturing for their group's (Women's Voices for Change) website. There's more to come.

Julianna

This is a quick one I did of my friend, Julianna for her Birthday.

Horton Foote

This is the latest profile caricature for the "Profile Theatre" in Portland, Oregon. It's of Horton Foote, best known for his screenplay for "To Kill A Mockingbird" in 1962, but also known for his many plays and other film scripts.
I think this is the 9th one I've done for them since 2000. Unfortunately, Horton died a couple of months ago, but he had a long, productive life.

More Park Caricatures

Here's some more Park caricatures taken with my cell phone camera (not the best way to do it). These take about 5-10 min. to do. It's funny how the peoples expressions rarely match up from when I take their photos to when I draw them.

"The Caricature King" is a business name!!!!

Just had to say again for the millionth time that I use the name" Caricature King" as a business name only, and I don't think I'm the "King of the Caricaturists" or anything of the sort. The idea is ridiculous and I don't have a huge ego like that.
I say this again because I heard from a friend that they were told that another caricaturist was talking about me like I DID think that and I had a lot of gall for thinking that. Obviously, it was someone who doesn't really know me, but THEY had the gall to think that they know what's going on inside MY head. Thanks for thinking the worst of me- fellow caricaturist- whoever you are. Feel your hate flow.... Embrace the Dark Side.

Every artist has their struggles to go through, and it's tough just to survive and make a living. I was working in the Fashion industry on and off for the past 17 years- delaying my progress as an artist in my opinion, because I needed to make money and survive. I've only recently been getting consistent work doing caricature gigs- so whatever I need to do to help me pay my rent and buy food, I'm going to do - within the law of course...
That's also why "The Caricature King" is in quotes.

Do you remember this guy?

Yes, you're right. It's Ross Perot- the Independent who ran for President back in 1992. That's when I did this drawing; I know, it's old, but I never posted it before and did it at a time when I didn't have a computer, blog, etc. Most people didn't at that time.
Anyway, if I would change anything on it today, it would be to make his eyes farther apart. The way I did this drawing back then was to draw "blind" at first to get at the person's psychology and to be able to see more. When you work this way, you're using your "inner eye" and it's more highly concentrated. More of the details tend to emerge and you get a better likeness. After the contour is drawn, you can then look back and forth to re-asses things and put the shading in.
I was also trying to work with the idea of the duality of people. Most people will have a difference from one side of their face to another, and it's important to see the differences if they're there. If you cover up one side of his face and then the other, you should be able to see two different aspects of his personality.

I just altered the original in photoshop to separate the eyes a bit- here it is.

Heath

Here's a quick Heath Ledger caricature done for the ISCA forum- Birthday section. It was his Birthday back on April 4th. R.I.P.

Ballerina

I did this for my cousin's 40th Birthday- she's a dancer.
It's pastel.

DeJa Vu

This is a drawing of Elvis I finished recently for a client who saw the same drawing I did 17 years ago and wanted one. I normally wouldn't do this, but they really wanted it, and I never got a really good copy of the first one anyway, so I did it.
It was very time-consuming because I build up the tone gradually and use a wide range of pencils- from 6H to 7B and a black colored pencil for the darker darks. In the hair, I used a black oil-bar, which is a bit darker than the black colored pencil and sticks out from the background. You can't really see that effect from this copy; you need to see the original.

Marina-2

Ok- here's the redo of Marina, and she got back to me right away and said she loves it.
So that's a relief... Eventually it will be on her show with the history of the word, "Caricature". Look for it at www.hotforwords.com

Some more Park Caricatures

Here's some caricatures I did in the Park yesterday- captured with my cell phone (not the best way to take a picture).

Spike

On the forum of the International Society of Caricature Artists, there is a Forum where members post artwork, and Jan OpDebeek started a daily caricature of whoever's Birthday of a famous person it was, and Spike Lee was one of them.
So here it is.

More Park Caricatures

We get all kinds in Central Park, NYC; An Aunt/ Niece from Spain, 3 friends in good spirits from India, 2 girls from Texas, and my third couple who got engaged through caricature. She said yes, so it hasn't failed yet(I can't imagine if it did...)
Keep in mind some of these people change their pose a bit or put on a hat, etc. when I photographed them through my cell phone with their drawing- so it's not always an accurate comparison.

Marina

Here's a caricature I did of Marina the philologist, who saw the drawing I did of Jill Hanner and wanted one herself. She's going to put it on her show: www.hotforwords.com and research the origin of the word "caricature". I have a couple books which go into this, but I'm curious to see what she will find.
I have one other caricature of her which isn't finished, but which I felt captured her face better than this one. I'll post that eventually...

More Live Caricature

Here's some more live caricature- 2 from the park and 2 from "Faces and Names" (159 W. 54th St.) where I've been doing caricatures since they opened 11 years ago. I've been trying to go in once a week again, if they let me, and I just work for tips.

In the Park

This is the first year since Iˆstarted to go out to Central Park where I've gone out all year round. Anything over 34 degrees was fair game; I just learned how to dress warmer. Most of the time, I didn't bring my camera, thus the lack of entries to my blog as of late. However, I took this one with my cell phone- a nice couple from The Caribbean. They were not used to our cold weather here in NYC, but they were smiling all the same...

Brother-In-Law-In-Law

I think that's what you call your Sister-In-Law's Bother...and if not, that's what it should be. Anyway, that's who this is; he commissioned me to do his caricature for his website and after a couple of tries- this one being the last one, he decided to go with a photograph- just like a lot of magazines do. I offered to just give him the artwork, but he didn't want it.
At least he paid me some money...

Live party painting

This is a painting I did at a Bar/Bat-Mitzvah during the party in about 5 hours. It was my trial painting for the company- "Untouchable Events" and I'm going to do some more in the future. The challenge was to try to get some recognizable people in the painting even as they were moving. The light source was all over the place- constantly moving and changing color, so that was a challenge as well.
For the next one, I'm going to get photos ahead of time for the main people at the party and incorporate them in the scene.
This is acrylic on masonite.

Their hate has grown strong

Do I really need to say anything?

The answer is blowin' in the wind

This will be the last dog drawing I post here- the rest will be on my pet-blog at www.danspetproject.blogspot.com

I liked this photo of my old neighbor's dogs because they show absolute bliss in the simplest of things- the wind. We should all be so grateful.

The drawing is colored pencil and pastel pencil.

Another Kato

Here's my friend, Justin's dog, Kato again- this time more caricatured. This is his prize for the most comments on the blog in 2008. I'm also going to use the image along with the other dog ones (and one cat) to get more pet-work.
I already got one gig from the flyers I put up already, so I guess it's starting to work. It's a dog-grooming party in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Gobobean

Here's a caricature I did of my new friend, Jill Hanner- aka: Gobobean. She's on Youtube with her own channel, as well as a multitude of other online outlets. I still haven't seen all the video's she's done. YOu can see her on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/xgobobeanx From there you can get to her other sites.
I met up with her last week and gave her this drawing and she was really cool.
A couple days later she gave me an extra digital camera she had, cause I mentioned how I'd like to start shooting some videos... How cool is that?
I already shot some video of the James Jean show, and will try to get it up on Youtube as soon as I have time and figure out how to do it.

And the winner is....

Justin again- for the most blog comments of 2008. You win one drawing. I'll give it to you next time I see you.

Mabelle and Kato

Here's a couple more dogs done on commission for some friends of mine. The drawing of the Pug is "Kato" for my friend, Justin and the Acrylic painting of the Hound Dog, "Mabelle" is for two of my old roommates- Becky and Eric. Now I might start a new business drawing and painting dogs.

Irena's Vow

This is a drawing I did for the director of the play- "Irena's Vow" to be given as a gift to his cast. It's the true story of a Polish woman who hid 12 Jews in the basement of an SS Officer's house during the Holocaust. I was fortunate enough to see the play and it was very well done.
This drawing is colored pencil and I did the majority of it yesterday (I didn't get final approval of sketches till late last week, and I had a couple of gigs Friday and Saturday, so I didn't have much time to work on it.) Nevertheless, here it is.

Dogature

So I did this party back in September just for Dogs, which I thought would be kind of fun, albeit challenging. I brought my camera along to photograph those dogs who wouldn't keep still (most of them) and I told the host that I would do this so I could draw those dogs from my camera WHILE I WAS THERE. In the middle of the party he had me draw human children instead for some reason, and then the time ran out on the party. I told him I would do a sketch of "Navy" the Birthday Dog and send it to him, since I didn't get to do him at the Party. About a week or two later, I get an e-mail from the host asking me where are all the other caricatures of all the other dogs at the party, and threatened to take me to court. Obviously, he mis-understood me, but wouldn't accept my logical explanation. I said I didn't even have photographs of most of the other dogs, but he didn't believe me. So now I'm waiting for a Summons to go to small claims Court, which will be a ridiculous case suitable for The People's Court, which I've been on before...
Anyway, these are some of the sketches I did on the train ride up to the party that day, and the final sketch of Navy that I sent to them at no extra charge. Think they appreciated that??

2 commissions

Here are the latest commissions of a couple with their respective Fathers in 2 paintings. They're painted in Acrylic.
I have to work on my lighting when I photograph; I'm getting hot spots as you can see.

Jan

Here's a better version of the scratchboard of Jan Neggers. It was generally dark in the room we were in, and it was hard to get good photos without the proper lighting. The flash just made it worse...

Jan thankfully sent me this scan. If anyone else I did has a better scan of the work I did of you, please send it along if you can.
Thanks!

International Society of Caricature Artists- North Carolina-2008

Here's one of did of the "ROCK" while standing on a chair above him (there were 100 drawings of him, so I was trying to change it up). A photo of me and Rock. One of me and some say my look-a-like- Steve Silver, and some drawings I did from his figure drawing for character design class. The interesting exercise was to study the figure and then draw from memory after she breaks the pose. The last photo is of our workspace showcasing Jason Seiler's great acrylic painting of George Lucas. There's a better copy on his blog.

Even more ISCA stuff

Here's some more- one of Seo Kim in brown pencil and brown brush pen (ignore the spot), one of Jan Neggers in un-inked scratchboard, and a photo of Fred Harper, Jason Seiler and Paul Moyse with me telling Jason's Brother-In-Law to push the button on the camera half-way to focus.

More ISCA Convention

Here's some more work from my wall. Each artist is given a section of the wall to display their work with a number. Then, throughout the week you try to caricature whoever you want out of the people there and then at the end, you are judged by everybody in attendance in a number of different categories. There is best black and white, best color, best cartoony style, best abstract style, etc.
The first one is of someone I drew from life while attending Joe Bluhm's advanced party caricature seminar. Don't worry, Joe, I was still listening. The second is of Mikey in Acrylic and the third is of Kamal from Singapore in scratchboard.

NCN(ISCA) Convention-2008

Just got back Sat. night from a long drive from North Carolina where I attended the National Caricaturist Network Convention- (now called more appropriately the International Society of Caricature Artists). It was a lot of work, but always inspirational and worth the trip. I was fortunate enough to sit next to Jason Seiler and Fred Harper during the convention who inspired me from a painter's point of view and helped me to push myself. I drove down with Paul Moyse and Fred Harper- both of whom are very talented. Paul also did a great one of me. Check these guys out and Jason Seiler from my links to the right. They are all award winners. Btw, the one in the cap is Jason and is pastel and the other one is Paul and is painted with Acrylics. More to come...

Neil Simon

This is the last caricature I did for the Profile Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, this is the first year that they didn't have the caricature on the cover of the program for the season. This is the back cover of the first play that they're doing. Instead, the managing director decided to put a digitized photo of Neil Simon's name on a building for the cover. Very lame. It's not my cousin's fault, though- I'm grateful for all the work she's gotten me over the years for their group.

Mihai Eminescu

Here's the last one- Mihai Eminescu. Colored pencil on illustration board with acrylic in the background.

Ion Luca Caragiale

Here's another one for the Romanian show. One more to go...

Nichita Stanescu

Here's the third of the Romanian personalities for the show in Romania. I have two more to do and then I have to send all of the originals in and hope I'm chosen. Either way, it will be in the show, but if I'm chosen, I'll get to go over there for free.

The only thing I wish with all of these, is better photo references. Sometimes you have to make do with what they give you. The web has very little on these people...

John Kascht's Rudy and Obama

Here's some great sketches John did of Guiliani and Obama of which were included in the video.

The Politics Show Opening at the Society of Illustrators

This was the opening of the show of Politics at the Society of Illustrators here in NYC (128 E. 63rd). It mainly featured some of the best caricaturists around, including Philip Burke, Steve Brodner, John Kacsht, and Peter DeSeve, amongst others.
Pictured here on top is one of me and my caricaturist friend, Glenn Hilario with the infamous Philip Burke- someone I've wanted to meet since around 1988. He was a nice guy- easy to talk to, and forthcoming about sharing his process. Here are some of his painting featured that night as well as a brilliant Sarah Palin by my old teacher, Steve Brodner. Steve also had his sketchbook on a pedestal so everyone could flip through it. There were also videos that he had made with the New Yorker called "The Naked Campaign" which were great to see again. Downstairs featured John Kacsht's work and also a video of him explaining his process. I met him as well and he was also a nice, down to earth fellow. I'll include one of the photos I took of his above...

Nothing can stop me now

This is the loft my friend Alex built over my drafting table the past couple of days. It's going to help with my storage problem in my work room/common space room. It also forced me to clean up all of the stuff I had on my table for years and now I can finally use it for what it's supposed to be used for. I nailed in a thin strip of wood at the base of the table with a cut-out area for my arm when I draw. I don't know why I didn't figure this out earlier, but it makes all the difference in the world when the table is angled.
I then put the Japanese shoji screen on the side to help enclose the space and help me focus when working. I just need to reorganize now and then get back to work...

Some more Park Caricatures

Here's some more caricatures from Central Park, NYC- a refuge for people in a big city seeking greener pastures.

Emil Cioran

Sorry for the lag in blog entries; I was having an artistic lull and I was also waiting to hook up my new scanner.
This one is on Emil Cioran- a Romanian personality (writer?) for the Romanian caricature contest I've mentioned before. I have one more to go- almost done with that one...
This is mainly colored pencil with some pastel.

The Boss

Here's the Bruce Springsteen painting in 5 stages- painted in Acrylic. I was trying to use the red, white and blue motif in the color-scheme to show that he is America- not something separate on a flag, or purely political or nationalistic. When there is something wrong with this country, it should be criticized as he has done in the past.
Anyway, I thought I was making him too red in the face which could imply other meanings, so I toned it down a bit with more of an orange-red and some purples in the shadows as well...
This is at "Rumours"- 55th & 8th Ave. in Manhattan.

2 more...

Ezekiel 25:17

Here's another one of Samuel L. Jackson.

Amy

Here's one of Amy Winehouse in the more simplified style. Take a guess as to what the background is.

Even more still

Here's some more live caricatures from Central Park. The second and third ones are a father and son- can you see the resemblance?

TARANTINO

I was just re-watching parts of "Pulp Fiction" earlier today and started sketching Quentin as he was being interviewed by someone in the extras on the DVD. I did about 4 sketches of him before I got to this one, and by this time, I didn't need a reference anymore. It's an interesting way to work- to study someone enough through initial caricature sketches, so that the face is in your head- and you can translate it through your own interpretive mind and come up with something new and creative, but still carrying over the likeness. That's the aim, anyway. I think I had "Turcios" somewhere in the back of my mind when I did this one. Check out his stuff from my links- he's brilliant.
This was a small sketch with colored pencil on toned paper, with some added "Pulp Fiction Red" to the background thanks to photoshop.
I've been doing the more "realistic caricatures" for a while now (since 1990), and sometimes I get tired of it. It's much more common now than it was back then- I don't remember many people doing it until I saw Krueger's stuff. (Not that my stuff is up to his level of realism and exaggeration). Anyway, it was a little more fun for me to do this style, but I'm not sure if I can apply it to everybody or not. I'll have to work on it...