Five years ago, a mother I met while helping out at work parties for my first daughter's Grad Nite at TC High School learned that I did caricatures, and she asked me to do one for her daughter, who was graduating and going on to college at San Jose State.  Her son has now graduated as well, is going to Northern Arizona University, and she desired a caricature for him too.  I asked her if she wanted to see a rough sketch before going to final, or would she just trust me, and bless her heart, she let me do my thing without any input!!  This was a lot of fun...hope they like it.

I received both a voicemail and email on Thursday afternoon from a potential client telling me a caricature artist he had hired weeks earlier and payed half up front to draw his parents had totally flaked on him and was desperate to get them drawn and printed on t-shirts by Saturday for a family cruise on the Disney ship "Magic" to Spain.  I agreed to help him in his time of need, but he was at work and didn't get pictures emailed until after midnight.

 A rough drawing was sent Friday mid morning and while waiting for a response,  I decided to go to the gym for a workout, arriving back home around mid afternoon.  I had mistakenly drawn them facing the wrong direction, as he wanted to mimic a Mickey and Minnie Mouse design.  He also had few other suggestions and modifications for the final.  I flipped the drawing in Photoshop and made the decision to do the finish digitally with my Wacom tablet.  What a mistake!!!  First of all, when a drawing is reversed, it doesn't quite translate properly and changes need to be made, the most telling being the redirection of the mother's hairstyle and subtle adjustments to the facial structures.

I had such a hard time controlling what I wanted to accomplish with the digital pen, especially the line quality, direction and flow on the slick surface of the tablet while gazing at the results on the computer monitor.  The eraser tool was easiest for me to command and it was called to service A LOT!!

Since I had promised he would have a completed drawing by Saturday morning, with much aggravation and exhaustion I worked through the night drawing, erasing, redrawing, erasing ad nauseam trying to get it right, and I finally added the final touches bleary eyed around 8 am.  I was tempted to take a break before completion, but I had a gig at two Saturday afternoon, and was afraid I wouldn't have the time or energy to get it done before needing to leave, so I bit the bullet and plowed through till done.  The client said I was a lifesaver, and the final was fantastic, so at least he was happy!

After a short nap I drove to my birthday party gig and made 3 times more money in 2 hours than the approximately 14 total hours toiling on this one drawing.  "Perfectionism" (and bad decisions) can be a mighty curse sometimes.

My mother turns 78 this week.  She has always loved to sing and perform, so I decided to focus on her talent for music, and the thought of a songbird came to mind.  Though I enjoy cartooning, I wanted this time to approach the task in a more painterly, slightly more realistic direction with the bird and surrounding decor.  My desire was to make the lettering represent the look of notes on clef bars.  The bottom painting is a flower added to the inside of the card as a little bonus and having fun with watercolor.  I'm betting the note added inside combined with the artwork will bring a little tear to moms eye.  It doesn't take much now days to get the waterworks flowing. :)

It's hard to believe my friend Kenny and his buddies have been doing this event for 28 years!  Each season they travel to different locations, and a new design is commemorated on t-shirts.  I was commissioned years 5 through 7, cartoony versions of their drunken antics combined with golf.  They went a different direction for the ensuing years until this one when Kenny asked me again.  Though I love to do cartoons, I decided to try a more serious design like approach and practice my pathetic Photoshop/Illustrator skills.  It took me an eternity to accomplish, but after all my plodding, cursing, trial and error, I did learn some new techniques and like how the finish turned out.

All of my girls are now out of their teens, as my youngest Lauren turned 20 on the 23rd of May.  In July, she and her sister Kristi are traveling together to Thailand for about 5 weeks, so I used that as inspiration for her birthday card.  A film called The Life of Pi was popular this year, so I did a word play to commemorate the big trip, and along with working on a farm interspersed with sightseeing, the girls want to ride on elephants and cuddle with tigers as part of their experience....so into the card they go!

These were some frustrating drawings for me!  I don't charge enough for my work, nor am I good at setting boundaries or saying no!!  The bane of being a people pleaser.  No matter how strongly I stress the importance of being sent clear, current, unobstructed, un-dark, large as possible photos from the client, I rarely get what I need to help me get a good likeness.  Beyond the plethora of logos this mother wanted included as an ode to every college and sports teams associated with her boys, and the complexity of drawing an instrument such as the French Horn, she repeatedly nixed the bodies/scenes I  put them in, had a hard time seeing their likeness, and I wasn't capturing their personalities!  Because I know them so well, and I'm inexplicably supposed to pick that up through osmosis from crappy 2D pictures!  After numerous roughs and revisions, she still was not satisfied.  I emailed her and told her she should find another artist to make her happy, because I was done with all the nitpicking and unrealistic expectations.  Suddenly my drawings became awesome, and she was more than pleased with them.  Despite my little snit, and feeling far from anxious to continue, I decided to complete what I had started.  I even made more revisions, hoping to make her happier still.  So thrilled to be done!!

Commission from a father for his son's birthday, including family and their dog.  When I sent a rough drawing for his approval, he thought I made his son look too much like John Kerry, and the dog looked "generic"whatever that meant.  Am I the only one who thinks animals of the same breed all look alike?Somehow I'm supposed to capture personalities from 2D pictures and osmosis.  I think my original drawing of the son captured his likeness much better than the finish, and he actually does resemble a young J Kerry IMHO, but what do I know?  This was done in ink and prisma color.