Here are some Caricatures that I drew at a Party. Whoosh~ I had been called that very morning to get to an event Upstate and draw as fast as possible ~ Black/white if that will save time on the drawings. Client's request.

Scramble. Change plans for the leisurely day I thought I was going to have. Pack up Supplies, get travel directions, change into Party clothes and Drive. Oh Oh. Traffic. Nothing I can do about it. I could have left earlier only if the event was before the very day-of !

I kept in touch with my liaison, and stressfully focused the whole drive there. Over an hour. Ran in at the last minute (instead of the half-hour early that I usually do if I am given enough advance notice to leave extra travel time), set up quickly, drew continuously. Then I had to run to the gym as I had originally planned to do for the day. But it was a Saturday. My gym closes early on Saturday.

Scramble. What a run of a day. After running out of the house, rushing through traffic, setting up fast, drawing fast, I went to the gym that was near the event. It had a very complicated Parking situation which took over half-hour. Left me with only 45 minutes to work out before they rushed me out to close the gym. But I knew of another gym that I could pass on the way home. It stayed open a little later. If I hurried, I could catch an hour there too. Which I did. Ran in, fit in whatever exercises I could, ran out when they needed to lock up....

And here are the pictures I have to show for it:

And I feel good.

I feel so interested to see all the different people. So many people.

I felt tickled pink by my visual reaction to this boy. I felt like his hair was separated from his head, like it went up to the clouds. That's what makes it so much fun to be an Artist:

This one looked like a doll:

And I felt so pleased to draw this girl. My favorite type of picture is the 'short story'. That's what I call it. Just drawing what needs to be drawn to tell the story. Without a lot of extra stuff:

I feel so blessed that so many people stop in front of me. So I get the opportunity to really see them.

It's been a long journey, but I feel like I finally settled on my New Style of Caricatures. I drew these in my time off ~ with some old dried out Chartpak that I had here. And a few Color Sticks.

I think of this style as 3D. I refer to my old style as Cartoony. One is not better than the other. They are just Different.

My new 3D style isn't as difficult for me to do. It uses the same interpretive skills as my Cartoony style. and I can draw my vision directly, without extra steps. And I feel like more customers would be more impressed with the 3D style. So why not relax and really Enjoy doing my work ~ I hope it feels this easy when I'm drawing in person at an event.

BTW, I surfed the web to find pictures of faces for my reference photos. The first picture here was one of those Wow experiences for me. Because i felt like it was the very face that had super-intrigued me when I was a child ~ on the cover of a National Geographic Magazine. I had kept that magazine around for years because of those haunting eyes. And then, here, out of the blue, it was looking right at me again. Never read the article, though. I just looked at the cover of the magazine for many years.

It always looks to me like my Party Guests are so together. Having fun together. Comfortable with each other.

Could it be that everyone else gets along so harmoniously with their husbands/wives/friends? Could it be that everyone else is appreciated and accepted by their husbands/wives/friends?

So it's interesting to me that I frequently get comments from those guests in which they say that they can tell that I (the Artist) am having such a good time. Because I do feel very happy in that activity of drawing in front of people. But it goes on top of all sorts of other feelings that I might be having inside. Since they wouldn't see all of me, perhaps I'm not really seeing all of them either. Maybe everyone has stuff to deal with?