Here are some Caricatures that I drew at a Party. Whoosh~ I had been called that very morning to get to an event Upstate and draw as fast as possible ~ Black/white if that will save time on the drawings. Client's request.

Scramble. Change plans for the leisurely day I thought I was going to have. Pack up Supplies, get travel directions, change into Party clothes and Drive. Oh Oh. Traffic. Nothing I can do about it. I could have left earlier only if the event was before the very day-of !

I kept in touch with my liaison, and stressfully focused the whole drive there. Over an hour. Ran in at the last minute (instead of the half-hour early that I usually do if I am given enough advance notice to leave extra travel time), set up quickly, drew continuously. Then I had to run to the gym as I had originally planned to do for the day. But it was a Saturday. My gym closes early on Saturday.

Scramble. What a run of a day. After running out of the house, rushing through traffic, setting up fast, drawing fast, I went to the gym that was near the event. It had a very complicated Parking situation which took over half-hour. Left me with only 45 minutes to work out before they rushed me out to close the gym. But I knew of another gym that I could pass on the way home. It stayed open a little later. If I hurried, I could catch an hour there too. Which I did. Ran in, fit in whatever exercises I could, ran out when they needed to lock up....

And here are the pictures I have to show for it:

And I feel good.

Sometimes, a guest might be all a-serious while being drawn. I might see something like this:

And then they get all animated when they are surprised with the finished Caricature:

wouldn't that have been more fun to draw??

BTW, my gracious client gave me the following note after the event:

Dear Alison: Thank You for the pictures. You are really good at it. You made the party cranking! Come back soon! :-) Love, Everybody :-)

Wow ~ It feels so good to see the good reactions to what I do. And it feels so good to have my experience confirmed on top of that.

Nothing wrong with the previous post. Those Caricatures are great! But nothing much to do this afternoon at home. So just fiddling around with that new idea of making more consistent poses/pictures, I drew new Caricatures from some of the previous post's photos. It feels like 'wasting time', but I know it's what keeps me comfortable and fresh when I got to my next Paid Event.

Here's what I came up with. Once again, I can see that sometimes the pictures look smoother with the new style, but other times the pictures look more vibrant with the style I had been using for years. So one way is not better than the other. We just do whatever we do, spend our time however we spend our time.

It feels good to be versatile. Good to have more than one approach. There's no one answer that works for every picture.

We can't even pin down a one-answer-for-all-pictures about line quality. Sometimes heavy lines make the picture look more glamorous. But sometimes heavy lines make the picture look too chunky. By practicing, I get a good handle on that, but you can still never be sure until you do it. Each of my pictures are as unique as each of the people.

Look at this Fun Party. Just held in a basement, but the decorations made a fantasy dream for the girls. Most of them wearing jeans and t-shirts, but once they put on the theme-supplies that the hostess provided, they were transported. I've always felt that Romance is actually Larger then Life. We Make It Happen.

I just wish I my job had been made clear to me. I came prepared to draw Caricatures, but this is more in the way of Fashion Sketches. Luckily, I've done Fashion Sketches as well as Caricatures very often, so I was able to make the switch on the spot. But it's not comfortable for me to

Change. Just as I'm about to 'go on'. Because I have a mind-set, and I've done Warm Ups before an event. To get 'in the zone'. Feels like I'm thrown into a big open field without an anchor.