Family Caricature

Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to draw caricatures at my church's block party to celebrate the new school year. It was a great way to meet people in our community and hopefully make us known to those who might be looking for a church home or a place to grow in faith. I drew caricatures professionally at theme parks for about five years before doing design work for embroidery full time. One of the things I loved most about drawing caricatures live was the interaction with a customer and getting a nice hearty hand shake or giant smile from someone who absolutely loved the piece of art you did for them and the experience they had!  :)

The caricature above is a portrait of my wife and I and our cat, Stimpy.

Thank you for stopping by. :)

New Beginnings

Really happy to share the good news. Last month I proposed to my girlfriend (now fiance) Heidi and we plan to marry next year in the Spring. This is a sketch I did of us and my cat Stimpy. Our first family portrait. :)

I am blessed.

She's my best friend and I am grateful God has brought us together.

Lonely Island Caricatures

The other night I bought the newest Lonely Island album (Turtlenecks and Chains) and can't stop laughing. The group is made of three guys including Andy Sandberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer and they are best known for their comedic music. If you've been watching SNL the last five years, you've probably seen some of their music videos as digital shorts. This drawing was done about a year ago and I was inspired to share it after the last couple days of ROFLing. So good... :)



Blog Update: 11/24/11


Couldn't help myself; I've been listening to the new album so much I had to caricature the whole crew. I think it'd be cool to do this drawing again and trace it in Illustrator to really get that clean, symmetrical look. I'd also play with their silhouettes and likeness more.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Thanksgiving.

Sketch Book Caricatures

Here's a couple caricatures pulled from the sketchbook. The first one is of the rapper, Emenem. I think it's funny how he looks so serious or doesn't smile in his pictures so I decide to "lighten the mood." As my project manager would say, "somebody needs a hug..." The second caricature is of the auther, Franz Kafka done for the Caricaturama Showdown 3000 over at Facebook. I haven't drawn a lot of caricatures in the last year and these were some challenges from my friend, Ricardo, so thanks for pushing me, buddy. It was a lot fun!

Free Time

These are a couple drawings from a while ago. The first one is a portrait study done by Yim Mau Kun. Studying other artists work helps me stay limber and learn some new tricks. Whether consciously or unconsciously, I do them in hopes that their genius becomes apart of my work as well. The second one is a drawing of Michael Jackson from about a year ago. It was a rough drawing in my sketchbook and was later cleaned up in Adobe Illustrator.

Happy Holidays to everyone and best wishes to you in the new year!!

Published

Ignore the watermark. I don't have the file on this computer with out my name written across his forehead.

Back in 2007 when I first started playing with digital painting, I did a caricature of my favorite late night host, Conan O' Brien. Last year I was fortunate enough to be asked for the rights to use the image in Marlo Thomas's new book "Growing Up Laughing." I was more than happy and agreed to let her use it. It is an honor and privilege!

Blast from the Past

Going old school here. These are caricatures I did back at Legoland, California in 2008/2009. Our thing was that we would draw you doing just about anything, but usually I tried to steer my customers towards the direction of a Star Wars character, zombies and my favorite super heroes.

I do miss drawing live caricatures. There's something about interacting with a client in person and when you do a good job, and the customer loves their drawing, it's a really good feeling!

Sketchbook Caricatures

This first drawing makes me happy. :)
It's a caricature of my friends Dan, Natalie and Marko. I had a really good time seeing them and my friends in San Diego last month. I draw my friends sometimes for the sake of a memory exercise and it also puts me in a good mood. I liked how the stylization turned out so I decided to put it to the test on some celebrities. The next drawing is a caricature of the band Green Day. If I would do this again, I'd work on the likeness and expression a bit more. Otherwise I had fun playing with the shapes and simplifying.

thanks for stopping by :)

Friends... and more Drama!

Here's a couple recent drawings. To start it out, the top one is another celebrity caricature of Kevin Dillon's character, Johny Drama. I started this in October when I just moved back to Minnesota and just never got around to coloring it.

The second image is of two friends of mine, Dan and Natalie. They're both caricature artists at Legoland and super cool people. Natalie loves food and we used to talk about our favorite taco shops in Encinitas whenever it was slow at work. Dan, well, he's pretty much the man. They have been friends for a while but it was around Christmas time when I saw on Facebook that they were dating now and became inspired to draw this.

The last drawing is of another California friend/artist... Ricardo Vasquez. Another good man to say the least. To contrast his love for death metal music, Ricardo is probably one of the kindest guys you'll meet. A friend to all and a lover of life I can't say enough good things about him and his family. This was a warm up drawing before working on a freelance project today.

Finally... I've been listening to some art(pod)casts of Stephen Silver. Very inspirational and great food for thought, especially if you're into animation, caricature and passion for art. Check it out if you get a chance and thanks for stopping by!

Food For Thought

Here's some kind of new art from the last couple months. The top image is another from my sketchbook inspired by Joshua Middleton. I remember seeing his work on X-Men covers when I was younger and recently fell in love with his work all over again. The second image is a caricature of Will Ferrell from the movie Anchorman. Couple of my friends from California are drawing celebrities for fun so that's our new thing. Finally, the last image is of an adult actor Jessie Jane done for a friend. I like how the ink in the background turned out, and as always, drawing sexy woman is a plus.

There's something that's been on my mind and apart of my focus the last couple months that is worth mentioning. If anything, I just want to talk about it more because I've kept most of it to my self and it's worth sharing . What I'm talking about is the laws of attraction and positive thinking.

About two years ago my mom gave me this book called "the Secret." It's a group of professional teachers, philosophers and speakers that share how they have come to understand the laws of the universe. It has a lot to do with gaining control of your thoughts and getting what you want in life. The ideas shared in this book are closely related to the New Testament from the Bible. What's really interesting to me is the more I research, the more it seems all other ideas, practices and religions that are out there all have many similarities.

I could talk about this till the cows come home, but for what it's worth, I'm really grateful to learn and practice from these teachings. I owe a lot of my good fortunes, relationships, health and wealth to this way of living. Each day is a blessing and there's a lot to be said about gratitude. Each day I look forward to learning more about these teachings.

Ooofda! That was a lengthy one. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Sketch Book Stuff

Here's some of my favorite drawings from the last couple months since moving back to Minnesota. The sketch book I've been using has this middle tone for paper, which is great for working with darks and lights. One of my favorite new things to sketch with are white out pens. This sketch book (to me) is about experimenting with value and having fun. Some times I find that my favorite drawings come from experimentation or just not caring about how the final drawing will turn out. These were all drawn from photographs which were used as inspiration. Hope you guys enjoy them as much as I had fun drawing them!

Michael Jackson Drawings

These are a couple MJ inspired drawings I did about a month ago. The first drawing is from my sketch book and the second was used as demonstration art for Kaman's Art Shoppes at Legoland, CA. 

Drawing Michael Jackson as a caricature is like shooting fish in a barrel... especially in his later years with all the plastic surgery. But that's not how I wanted to portray him. These drawings weren't  meant for ridicule, but to remember the king of pop... and for myself.