A while back, I drew a Caricature for a Dentist:

Now she asked for a matching caricature of another dentist in her office.

I felt thrilled with the new picture I came up with. I photocopied my linework before Coloring it, so I would be able to tweak it afterwards.

The following picture shows my first coloring of it. The darker one. Then, I made a few changes, and I enjoyed applying the colors with more finesse in the one with the lighter blue:

It was a delightful Holiday Gift. From one dentist to another. But sometimes people want to Thank their Dentist right after s/he took away their toothache. Sometimes they want to Thank their Specialists right after some difficult procedures. Right after big jobs. So I'm still getting requests to draw Gift Caricatures of Plumbers, Babysitters, Tutors, Waitresses, Maids, Drivers and Contractors ~ as well as for Doctors and Dentists. Some people are so kind to their people these days

It's been quite a while since I made a Real Painting on Canvas. With tubes of Paint. And brushes that are like sticks that I hold in my hand.

So it was quite of trip to get back into it for this painting that I am making as a Gift for 2 Dentists. Based on the photo that they sent me.

First I got involed with an Oil Painting. Remembering so much stuff that I used to do. Such as starting with a neutral toned base so the lights would immediately be lighter than the background, and the darks would immediately be darker than the background. The Colors turned out to be way off ~ Not what I had in mind at all. Maybe it's because I was using Old Unlabeled Jars of medium. It was probably hard to know for sure which was turpentine, which was linseed oil, which was a mix, or something else..... Anyway, my dreams for the Painting were not apparent.

I realized that I WAS IMAGINING A BIG ACRYLIC PAINTING! So I started all over again (Man, Canvas sure has gotten expensive since I last made a painting). I had to buy new Acrylic Paints.... What to buy.... Make some space to Set Up in the Studio.....

And Voila! This is only the First Painting Session on the Acrylic Painting, but I feel thrilled with it. This is just what I wanted it to be..... Just what I am envisioning.

It feels so good to be back!

,,,,, to be continued.....

There are such subtle nuances that affect what we see. Such subtle nuances that affect a person's mood. Personality. So when we draw Caricatures, the result iS affected by so many choices along the way.

This isn't such a concern when we're drawing Party Caricatures. No time to study a person's whole personality. And no time to try out different lines. It's all just fun. We're all in the Party Zone.

But when making a Studio Caricature.... the choices become more critical. There's time to choose what we want to Caricature to be saying. Personality. We get subtle changes from each line ~ thicker? thinner? softer? harder? angular? curved? exactly where would that curve go?

Several years ago, I felt honored to draw the two Dentists from Preserve Your Teeth. They are quite respected among the Best Dentists around. (If you need dental help, I recommend that you email them to see what can be done: ESinfo@preserveyourteeth.com ).

These two Dentists are married to each other, and they work in the same office. Dr Urbankova, the one with the 'braid' does the general dentistry. Dr Engebretsen, represented here as the 'floating mask in the sky', does periodontics.

Very pleased with their pictures, but only the picture of the Dentist with the braid got framed and hung up. Because they wanted them both to be the Same Size. (I had drawn the picture Dr Urbankova on 8.5 x 11 paper. I had drawn the picture of Dr Engebretsen on 11 x 17 paper. So now they requested that I redraw the picture of the Dr Engebretsen onto 8.5" x 11" paper.

I did that:

Then I was imagining what it would look like in the Dentist Office. Both fine Carictures, but do they Match? When the pictures are hanging together? So I started playing around with making a full-face picture of Dr Engebretsen.

Nice. I gave them Both the new floating mask picture And the picture with the cap. But what I'm writing about in this post is the Subtle Nuances of drawing the Caricature. Here's a picture of what I went through before I settled on that excellent Full Face picture of Dr Engebretsen.

You can notice the subtle changes of things like:

even though I represented his 'Mouth' as a single line, where to bend it? Changes the expression.

and even though I chose 'Short Hair' to be indicated near the 'Baseball Cap', what type of line to use??

and I felt like the heart-shaped 'Adams Apple', although cute, was not a good idea in this case......

I love the new Digital Equipment. I loved it so much that I jumped right in when we could make Paintings this way. Neat, clean....

but it feels so different than using traditional Paints on physical Canvas. I chose a few of my previous Paintings because I'm looking forward to creating some Large Gift Paintings now. It will feel sooo satisfying.

Samples were requested: