Friday, July 17, 2009

Portraits at the Fair

Posted by James Gurney at Friday, July 17, 2009
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6 comments:

Stephen James. said...

Cool, 1st post.

I'm kind of envious of caricture artist and people like this who can just grab a likeness out of what seems like thin air.

July 17, 2009 at 4:09 AM
S. Weasel said...

Not many of them are good at it. I did portraits at Opryland my last summer of High School. Most miserable six weeks of my life.

You would not be-LIEVE how many people with serious facial deformities sit for those things. There is no graceful way to ask, "would you like this with the giant hairy mole above your eye, or without?"

I was terrible at it, too. I wasn't the worst; that was my main consolation. Only one of us was much good, and she was impressive -- though her portraits looked more like each other than the client.

Also, I sat in the Dixieland section. After a week, I worked out that hearing The Saints Go Marching In was probably going to be my cue to go rogue and start killing people.

July 17, 2009 at 6:35 AM
r8r said...

cartoon portrait sketching is a very specialized nice, requiring a certain attitude.
it ain't easy to be nice to everyone, while emphasizing the positive and de-emphasizing the rest in a quick sketch.

I've done these myself, for high school prom parties and the like, so I know the territory.

I often wonder what happens to the drawings after they're rolled up and taken home. Pinned to a wall somewhere for a week or two?

What percentage are actually kept and framed? Or WORTH being actually kept and framed?

July 17, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Andrew said...

Joe Bluhm is a master caricature artist, though he's not always as kind to his clients as they would like him to be.

He actually has a book out through Brandstudio Press (I think?) called Rejects, which is full of nothing but rejected caricature drawings that the people didn't want (mostly on accounts of him drawing them so unflattering!) Needless to say, he likes to really push unique facial traits on people rather than de-emphasize them.

I think I only got one caricature done my whole life, and it was done by a robot. Way back in the early 90's, Epcot in Orlando had a robot that was stationed that drew portraits of people. Of course, when you think about it, it probably wasn't much different from doing something like applying a filter on a photo, but it was always fun to watch the robot arm sweep across the page with the pen and start to hatch out a portrait.

July 17, 2009 at 10:47 AM
Unknown said...

ive been doing caricatures for about a year and a half now at the san diego wild animal park... talk about hot during the summer.

yeah there are a lot of bad artists out there which is very painful to watch haha. especially when the client ends up liking it.

but theres also plenty of good ones.. brian oakes who is probably the best one right now, at least that i know of. i have a link to his blog on my blog. check his stuff out

July 17, 2009 at 2:55 PM
James Gurney said...

I second David's recommendation to check out Brian Oakes's blog. He shows photos of his subjects next to his caricatures so you can see what he was working with. He doesn't repeat himself or use a formula; he really picks up on the essence of a face. Awesome stuff, Brian!

Another caricaturist who you should check out is Mark Heng, a frequent commentator on this blog.

July 17, 2009 at 3:22 PM

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