Still pretty Quick, but I was really enjoying practicing that Black/White stuff that so many people have been requesting recently. I guess it's difficult economic times or something, but so many people have been asking more about 'how many can we squeeze in per hour' than about 'how much Fun can we have at the Party' - So many people have become focused on 'What Things Can I Get?' - instead of 'Let's take time off to Hang Loose, to Have Fun'.

So, in trying to accommodate them, I've been doing a lot of Black/White Parties. Obviously, it takes less time to draw a face than it takes to both draw a face And color a face. Still, even if the customer asks me to just get a paper to as many people as possible, I want to Enjoy the Art. I want to See and Experience each person. Here I was practicing to Both See well And draw quickly at the same time. The first three needed a predraw. But the last two were drawn directly with the marker:

I'll be drawing at a 50th Birthday Party tonight. At a local pub. Client requested Black/White Caricatures.

So I'm thinking - Perhaps I'd like to make them simple. Direct. Clean. To keep the Party moving - which is probably why they specified Black/White Caricatures.

Here are a few practices. This is fun. The pictures just roll right out of the marker. Not as wild as my usually Exaggerated Color Caricatures, but so much easier to make. And I think they look great in a little frame by the door. in the den. in the kitchen......

BTW, I timed myself drawing these simple Caricatures. Each one was done in 2 - 3 minutes. That's about 25 pictures per hour - much more than the 10 per hour that I usually recommend planning for. I'm sure it would take longer at an event than from photos - guests are human beings - but I'd still be confident of making more pictures this way.

I am a fully evolved Artist! I am fine just the way I am. I am me - Who else Could I be? I am not Al Hirschfeld. Or Alex Gard. Or any other Caricaturists whose work hangs in Sardi's. (Where I have, by the way, worked plenty of times - regular parties. my own artwork.) Those people, now gone, might have been asked to draw like Rembrandt or something while they were alive!

Not to say that it doesn't help my development to study the Artists of yesterday. Now, most of the published Al Hirschfeld pictures were drawn and redrawn before they became the pictures we know and love. And they were, of course, not drawn by Me. They were drawn by Al Hirschfeld.

I recently had a request to draw 'Hirschfeld-style' at a Party. I like to accommodate my clients. And it's healthy for my growth to do something different once in a while. So I quickly drew up this sample - the way I might do a 'Hirschfeld-style' in 5 minutes at a Party. I used blue color stick instead of black marker for the large area because it takes a lot less time to draw it that way - and my client is hoping to get a lot of pictures per hour.

I'm actually excited about the job. It will force me to study Hirschfeld. But, I'm writing that I exist too. I am an Artist. I live now. Plenty of people are glad to have a 'Gelbman picture'. Plenty of people like me.