I couldn't believe it. A well meaning guest, yes. But please ~ Can you imagine what it's like for me to miraculously Do my job? To quickly get an amusing likeness of a person? I don't know what you look like until those few minutes that I get to see you. If you turn your head or cover your face, you might as well be in the other room. I cannot possibly know what you look like. I certainly don't need (or even like) for a guest to model like an immobile statue, but I do need to be able to see him/her as though we were having a conversation. A conversation without speech.

This time, a guest actually put this child in front of me like this. Completely face-painted. With a bottle covering his mouth and bottom of face. And a big cotton candy to cover the rest. A small child, with so much going on, that he couldn't possibly have any idea that his face was being looked at to get his Caricature drawn. He probably felt lost, and I had no way to break through.

Luckily, I am a Face Painter as well as a Caricaturist. At least I was able to impose my own 'Face-Painting' onto the picture. The one that had been painted on this child was sooo not my style.

Here's a series of photos that show the sort of subject that I was trying to look at to quickly draw his Caricature. It started as a little boy, new to Parties, who didn't know about Caricatures yet. That's not unusual. In which we start showing the children how to have healthy Fun while they are still young. But in this case, the concerned caregiver thought to hand him a bottle immediately. Now, what's that going to do for the Caricature Activity? How will I know what he looks like when he's not 'eating'?

And sure enough, the good boy drank his bottle:

But then, hard enough as that was ~ for me to know what the boy looked like under his face-painting and any possible glimpse of him behind that bottle, the well-meaning caregiver chose to surprise the boy with

Cotton Candy! A Big cloud of cotton candy. To put in front of the rest of the face-painted face and the bottle. How am I supposed to know what to draw? And even more confused than I was, the child, looking around while trying to drink his bottle and handle his cotton candy and make sense of it all, looking around and turning his head ~ I have no idea of a person's expression, of the size of his nose, etc, if I am looking at the back of his head. Stressful for me. And I imagine it's confusing for the Child too.

At least I love the Caricature. Amazed that it came out so good. It's a good thing that I Pray before each event ~ I Pray to create joyful pictures.

I just wish there was an Order to the events that we bring the children. I could see that this caretaker was conscientious about watching the child and helping him have a good time. But he seemed unaware of the affect that all this good stuff was having when it was piled on too fast.

We wouldn't bring a child to the bathroom the same time we give him/her Birthday Cake. And we wouldn't teach them to eat at the same time that the cake is seen and the Happy Birthday song is sung. It would make so much more sense to apply the same rationality to the Party Events. To have the Caricature drawn Before the Face-Painting. And if the child needs intermittent bottle-comforts during the drawing process, don't surprise him with other wonderful foods at the same time. He can learn to eat them like a conscious gourmet if the wonderful foods are given the same conscious focus as the Fun Art.

Let's Think. Let's take a moment to notice the experience we give the child. I know that I see the guest's experience. I just sit there observing everyone. That's the first step of my job as an Artist.

Here are some of the Caricatures that I drew at Steinway Piano as per my post of December 29, 2013. Can you tell which drawings felt like I was drawing in a strait-jacket and which were my freer renditions?

Luckily I had arrived early ~ I needed the time to accommodate my liason's instructions. She surprised me with a last-minute request to include a reference of the building in each picture. Oh. I wanted to create, I wanted to fly, I wanted to keep the event moving, but now each picture was going to include lag-time while I adapted the unique faces into the building reference. That not only affects the time it takes to draw each person, it also affects the way the people feel when they're standing there, hence affecting the flow of the Party Entertainment. Drawing extras on the spot ~ Not the best idea for Party Entertainment, but I did understand why my client would want memories of the building. Still, wouldn't they remember the building just by seeing the pictures that were drawn here with their coworkers?

And what to draw for the building reference? Everywhere I turned, it was a different scene, and I would have to know what I was going to be doing before I started the Party. When you want to draw approximately 10 likenesses per hour, there really isn't time to Caricature a different background for each one also. So before the event actually started, I drew one scene for my reference. I felt okay about keeping the scene simple because their hallway was filled with original Art from the New Yorker Magazine. Still, it limited my freedom to 'dance' with each picture. I felt so happy half way through the party when the boss changed the instructions and let me draw just the faces, as I usually do. That's why some of these Caricatures are stiffer than the ones that are great. Pictures have a life of their own, and when we try to Control them, we're falling into a non-Artist's trap.

BTW, sometimes references naturally flow into my pictures anyway ~ even when I'm not forcing it to happen. For example, the 'piano keys' in the beard on the 'Best Men' picture. That happened After I was relieved of the extra instruction. and the reason they were labeled 'Best Men' is because they told me that one of them was the Best Man at the other's wedding References happen naturally. And they find their way into a picture naturally. It's part of the Real Experience.

Ah yes. One couple getting engaged, and then a 30th Anniversary Party. I feel just right about posting some pictures from this 30th Anniversary Party right after posting an Engagement Caricature. Especially because the picture that says "together" on it was a picture of a newleywed couple who just happened to be at the 30th Anniversary Party. Life Passages.

I feel so fortunate to be involved with people at all stages of their lives, from Birth through to the Nursing Homes.