I want to practice my Drawing at home so I'll have extra insights when I'm drawing at Events. One extra Caricature per day for the whole month of January 2018. So I drew random Celebrities during the first month of this year. Chosen by some other Artists who wanted to do the same thing with me. I ended up drawing in the middle of the night ~ because there just was not an extra moment in the day to do so. When I just want to close up my day, but there I was ~ usually grabbing some old dried up supplies that I have laying around and.... this is what I did.

The first one I drew was Freddie Mercury.

First day, I already learned something new. I learned that the Silver Colorstick lightens the Black Marker lines. Good to know ~ as though I'll ever have a Silver Colorstick around after I use it up at things like this. Did you know that my Favorite Silver Colorstick can Only be purchased as one in a big set of 50 other Colors? That means I have to spend about $75 every time I want One small Silver stick.

But by the 2nd day, I already dropped my 'rules'. This is my Time Off. I drew a quick-cac again ~ Kurt Cobain ~ and then I just exaggerated it some more and made a bright picture using my beloved IPad. What I learned this time is that I like the quick-cac better ~ because it looks airier. The heavy red background in the bright picture feels too solid. I like a picture that can breathe.

The 3rd day, I didn't want to spend my time off rushing through quick stuff at all. Not the IPad either. This time I tapped in to an old technique of using Colored Pencils. Midnight, I stopped wherever I was at. And what I learned by looking at these pictures (the blue one is Step 1, and then I continued on the same picture starting to flesh-it-out) ~ what I learned was the same thing as the day before! It's better to leave Spaces in pictures. The blue one looks better because I hadn't yet strangled the brown of the paper which would have been fine in a finished picture. If I ever chose to finish this.

I guess it's a good thing that I don't have a lot of time for most of my Professional work. Gotta draw fast at Parties and Events without second-guessing yourself. So there's no time to strangle them.

Robin Williams was just fun to draw. Then I tried a whole different technique when I was drawing Heath Ledger as the Joker. I approached it on my IPad more in the way that I used to do Portraits with Oil Paints......

Well..... make it Almost every day. An extra picture almost every day in January. I missed a few days here ~ So many distracting activities demanding my attention. I felt glad when I got back to this project.

I came back and drew Leonard Nimoy and Alan Rickman.

Then I drew Gene Wilder on the IPad. What to draw for Gene Wilder felt so obvious. He's such a character-actor. I just had to choose what age to draw him. So I enjoyed using an expression of his as a young man ~ imposed onto his old man face. That was fun.

I feel glad that my personal January project gets me to revisit this post. I like the Caricature of Gene Wilder ~ It's not too heavy. But I didn't pay particular attention to my new insight about letting the picture breathe. I hope I will approach my next picture with Conscious Intention to throw Air throughout the process. As a Drawing Exercise.

Well.... I feel like I was a little airier when I drew Adam West. I used sort of a painterly block-in technique ~ still trying to adapt that to my IPad. Because I haven't yet been able to create a brush in ProCreate that is hard edge on one side but soft edged on the other side. Hmmmm..... maybe I'll work on that this year. But for now, my extra project is to create a carry-case for the new go-to Lighting Set-Up that I'm designing for gigs. Besides this January Random Celebrity Thing.

Did I really stay up late at night drawing Batman?? I'm a grown up woman! How does this happen??

Next day ~ quick David Carradine with any ol' supplies i have around here. It's hard to find time for extra drawing, but Art doesn't mean agony. I am just trying to do Something (almost) every day in January. Whatever I feel like in the moment.

Gotta be cool....

Relax....

Get hip....

Get on my track....

Then I had a trip drawing #Bruce #Lee. I planned on doing a painterly thing with my IPad (I got that new brush! It's called Abbie's Watercolor Wet Glaze Hard Edge), so I felt disappointed when the other Artists decided to draw Bruce Lee. I didn't feel like drawing Bruce Lee. So I decided to just do a quick one with the old markers that I have here.

But once I got started, as would be expected, I liked drawing him afterall. And I tapped into something I had been taught many years ago ~ about drawing several SMALL thumbnails with all different decisions to determine which one works best before jumping in. Not a usual approach for a Party Artist like me, so I hadn't thought of that in a long time. When I went to draw the 'ears' , it would have looked ridiculous to line them up with the nose. And I thought, ahah, if I had done those thumbnails, I would have known to make the nose shorter. So they could line up with the ears.

So after I finished this long-nose Caricature, I took out another paper and started drawing Bruce Lee short-nosed. Figuring to use that as an opportunity to let his chin get longer. Oh my goodness ~ that was a Bad idea. It looked like a gave Bruce Lee a Jay Leno chin. Didn't look anything like him. So I moved the chin line up, and then he looked like a little child. Moral of the story is that I am the sort of person who usually does best with her first impression. I was meant to be a PARTY Artist.

BTW, I did extremely litl of a very light red predraw on my picture of Bruce Lee. I just decided to go back into it with the red again After it was all inked and shaded ~ I wanted to see pre-draw-type lines on it on purpose. I would have thought that breathing-space would always mean Less lines in a picture. Unfinished lines. But in this case, it needed More lines. Because the black lines were too simple to have enough motion/movement. So I had to Add more lines with the red. Red? For light and airy? Who would have thought.... But it worked. Real Artwork is more about Feeling than Knowing the answers. I had studied serious Controlled Paintings ~ Photo-Realistic ~ and now I want to able to 'dance' with the picture instead:

Whoah ~ Then I drew Muhammed Ali on my IPad with the Procreate App ~ I had to admit that THE IPAD WILL NOT FEEL LIKE TRADITIONAL PAINTING. I still love my IPad. Even though it will never Replace Oil Painting. It is IPad Painting. I am starting to develop my approach with it. I feel thrilled with my development tonight. I feel thrilled with my development this month.

I skipped a day again. Then.... George Michael. This Caricature of George Michael might be Unfinished, but I'm finished. It's almost 3:30am, and even though i couldn't pull myself away from the drawing, my IPad decided that IT had enough. Battery down, IPad plugged into wall, and I'm going to sleep. Aaaah ~ It was a good night.

Whitney Houston and Tom Petty:

Hard to find time for this extra project. Again, I skipped a day or two. But my month's commitment is almost over. So I just Took a few minutes here ~ enjoyed a quick drawing of Joey Ramone with whatever old supplies I had around here:

Oh when will this month's idea be over? Now my friends suggested I draw Ronnie James Dio? okay

No time left over after my long wonderful exciting day ~ gave me a chance to get back into Party Mode. Quick, no fuss. Litl if any Predraw. And to keep moving on no matter what happens with the Supplies, Surroundings, Drawing:

Sometimes, an old dried up marker is so much fun that I wonder why I only want to use fresh juicy markers at gigs. Here is my Caricature of Lemmy Kilmister ~ done with some old dried up markers that I had here

Quick. Chris Bennington. It's almost 3am in NY. Again.

It helps when I've actually heard of the Celebrity ~ And when I felt affected by his music. Bob Marley:

Aaaahhhhh ~ Good Experience. I got out of it what I put into it. Usually I didn't put much effort into it, so what I got was just confidence to relax when I'm drawing. And on the days that I did give it more effort (I'm thinking of Muhammed Ali and the Joker), I did have exciting IPad experiences. I feel glad I did it. 21 days out of 31.

Aghk ~ I think it looks like they chose only Celebrities that were (recentlyish) dead?