Engagement Party Caricatures

Here are the caricatures I did today at my second gig doing this stuff.

Tony Ryder workshop

I just attended a 3 day workshop with the incomparable Tony Ryder at the Long Island Academy of Fine Arts.  I have been in awe of his work ever since I first saw it in 11th grade.  I never thought I would get to meet some one that I had such a high regard, let alone get to study with him and have a couple laughs over lunch.  Definitely one of the nicest guys I've ever met.  He never shuts up while teaching, but that's a good thing because he is the master of humorous analogies.  Anyways here's the portraits that I did over the last few days as well as Tony's demo at the bottom.

first gig

Today was my first gig doing caricatures. It went really really well and I can't wait until next weekend for my second gig.

craft fair crap

Here's a couple of pieces that I did at the craft fairs (I forgot to take pics of most of them)

caricatures

So that whole art craft fair thing turned out to be a real bust.  I did two more shows in very affluent areas and the crowds were dismal and nobody was buying.   Even the other vendors who were selling more conventional things couldn't believe how bad the turnouts were.  I made just enough to break even on the rent and figured I'd get out of that whole business while I'm ahead.  On the bright side I managed to get booked for a couple of gigs to do caricatures.  Since I haven't really done caricatures before I figured I'd better practice before showing up hahaha.   So here's a couple of practice pieces, all done with a Faber-Castell PITT big brush pen on 11x17 Canson Biggie paper.  I've been timing them to songs so each is less than 5 minutes which is way quicker than what I thought I was gonna do.  Needs more practice though...

summer classes

I just finished the last day of my summer classes at Suffolk Community College.  I guess it was good in keeping me on a pretty strict sleep schedule which will definitely come in handy next semester.  Anyways here's a piece I did for my psych 101 class instead of writing a research paper.  It's for an article from Psychology today that examines why we see some things as great art, like a Michelangelo sculpture,  and others just kitsch, like a Santa Claus lawn ornament.  The article also talked about how when our brain first processes visual information it actually looks a lot like a Mondrian painting which is why we are drawn towards lines and contrast.  Whatever, here's the piece that I rushed out the night before it was due.