Once again, I've found that you don't know what you're going to learn until you go through the studying.

You don't know what you're going to experience until you go there.

Art is Life.

Tonight I'll be working at a Sweet 16 in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Sweet 16. What will that be like? I've worked at many Sweet 16's. From my experience, I'd say that That means Couples. Not my favoriate thing to do.

But there's nothing like studying to make me look forward to the experience. Because if I study, I'll be working out a problem, an idea. So I'll look forward to using what I studied.

The first thing I did was to draw some couples directly. I wanted to remember to overlap them. And I decided that tonight, I'd either want them looking directly at me or both looking to the same side. Looking directly at me is the easiest for me - I don't need much more than an oval with an X for a predraw:

I've been wanting to work on my 3/4 views for 3-dimensionality, so I practiced that too (more of a predraw - if I do it enough, I won't need it so much):

Then I remembered something that I love to do. When it jumps out at me and I see how I can wrap thge 2nd person's face in the leftover space of the first person. This is most likely to happen when someone has a very long thin face.

But I decided to just make it happen for me. By drawing the 2nd person as an amorphic shape:

Ick. Something I didn't like about that. So I decided to make then BOTH from amorphic shapes! That came out real cool. Real 'caricatureeeee':

And I'm off! About to go have some fun at Alana's Sweet 16. Parties can be what we make them to be. Life can be what we make it be. Parties, Life, School, can be fun, interesting, boring, scary, magical..... We can choose to change our experience if we don't like the one we're in.

Beauty. What is it?

I was just laying around on the floor of my office. As usual, there are piles of pictures everywhere. (I admit it - not just on my desktop, not just on my walls, in my files or in my car, but also on my floor, in my pockets, in other rooms......)

Anyhoos, I was laying on the floor relaxing, daydreaming .... An old picture of a stranger that I had drawn was in my line of vision. Relaxing, I had been so pleased to see this 'woman' peeking over at me. She seemed so comforting. As though she understands me. As though I could trust her. Beautiful!

She spoke to my heart as beauty, but I know that she doesn't 'qualify' as officially beautiful. My interpretation makes her beautiful.

And here's a picture that I recently drew at a party where I made a 'standard' beauty. I like this image too, but I don't think that we all have to look like this to look beautiful:

I ate in a diner last night. A person at a nearby table intrigued me. Woman? Man dressed in drag, but very well done? But this is the suburbs!

Well, this person had an absolute puff-ball area around her small mouth - which was outlined with dark lip-liner. And the bleached blonde hair. Fur vest.....

So I drew her picture:

I wasn't all that satisfied with my picture, but I put it away to eat. Hey - this isn't a commission - why agonize? I was just biding my time, waiting for my dinner to be done.

But, me, I came home with the picture. And once again, here I am at 2:30 am, trying to make my Artwork Better.

And look at what I made!!! It's wonderful!!! :

Here's a blast from the past. Cleaning off my desk, trying to do something with all those pictures I had thought were so important when I took them, I came across these photos of the very first Giant Caricatures I had made. Years ago when I first designed this idea:

BTW, I love making these Giant Caricatures, but I took them off my lists of information that I give to people who are planning Parties. Because it's just too hard to carry 22x28 papers around so often. But if you find this post, I hope you'll ask me about doing Giant Caricatures at your Party. For the few people who find out about them, I am glad to do them.