The Best Party Guests. The best party guests are ready for Fun! Excitement. Surprises.

Here are a few party guests reacting to their Caricatures

Good times. Aaahhh. You don't get reactions like these to Photographs. You don't get reactions like these to 'Realistic' Pictures.

Joy, Spirit, Fun ~ Art is supposed to be Playful.

We had so much fun at this Christmas Party

I just had an opportunity to put my ideas into words. Because a Guest had sent me the following email to which he kept emailing me back when I gave him short answers. It was an interesting experience, and I feel like I explained myself quite clearly. Client wrote............

I really love this drawing! I just wanted to know artistically you drew my wife with her face just a big smile and tongue sticking out?just want to know what what that signifies Basically you are expressing something.

..............and I responded: Yes ~ I love my work. I usually get into The Drawing Zone ~ in which nothing else is on my mind but the drawing. Sort of like the way I approached my Coloring Books when I was 3-years-old. Just me and the drawing.

.............Back when I was a child, I didn't care whether I was drawing Princesses or Fighting Horses. I didn't feel the arrogance that was in the scene of the Princess or the terror that was in the scene of Fighting Horses. I just felt happy to have the Big Box of Crayons! Yay!

..............Same thing now. I don't know why/what the people look the way they do. And I certainly don't know why they have their mannerisms. I do know that smiles do not always mean a person is happy. And a person who is not smiling could be very happy. I don't know why a person would roll her tongue or chew on her lip. I just draw it. I draw what I see. I feel the expression in my own face, and I have my own feelings from it. Feelings of the vision in that particular moment.

.............For example, in the picture of your wife ~ just now alone in my Studio, I tried to imitate it as best I could with My face. Surprising. My first attempt was to push my tongue forward ~ I felt thoughtful. But that wasn't what I drew. So I tried it again ~ big smile first, and Then push my tongue forward. Wow. A big confident move! I never did anything like that before. To Me, it felt powerful and Quite Extroverted. And confident. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that is your wife's personality. I wouldn't know. Different person. Different setting.

..............and to get back to what I was saying about Smiles not necessarily meaning that someone is happy..... sometimes people have an automatic 'Smile for the Camera' expression that comes out by habit ~ no matter what is going on with them at the time. And sometimes, we Think we're smiling because we're happy ~ but we're actually too busy to be in the moment. Running from this activity to that activity. So many different situations on our minds. People are not what we See.

................I believe that it's what's on the Inside that counts. Like cleaning an old coffee cup ~ we can shine up the outsides and decorate them with gold, but that doesn't mean that the inside might not be stained and filthy. Good on the outside, but bad on the inside. Or as seen the other way ~ sometimes we have to get a shot at the doctor ~ bad on the outside ~ but that can make us safe from developing diseases such as Polio on the inside. Bad on the outside, but good on the inside. And of Most Caution with this attitude ~ Beauty on the Outside does not necessarily mean Ugly on the Inside (or visa-versa). It just means that we cannot know what's on the inside based on what we see on the outside.

..........Especially as an outsider. I cannot know what your wife's expressions mean. But you Might know. Because you spent a lot more time with her and you Might know what she's saying in such an experience. Might, I say. Because we're not even that in tuned with ourSelves. Caricatures are just Fun ~ perhaps a chance to make us add to our internal happy acceptance.

...........Know Thyself ~ almost impossible?

............Thank You for this opportunity to try to put my ideas into words

That's just what I thought while I heard a girl amazed and repeating that line over and over behind me. "This is Fun," she kept saying.

We need to loosen up and let go. To be surprised. Not to take everything so seriously. Parties. Pictures. These things are supposed to be

Fun.

Here are photos of the Caricatures that I was drawing. I enjoyed seeing the children really having fun. The were involved and they were inspired to be drawing themselves too.

I managed to snap some photos of their reactions to the Caricatures that I drew: