I was going to write about a new approach I was enjoying today;
then something more exciting came up.

Here's the new approach - I used a colorstick for the predraw,
and it then became part of the colored picture when I was all done.
It was particularly helpful for shading areas - to create the 'landscape' of the face.Here's the quick predraw for a pretty face I saw on the subway:

I could just develop it with colorsticks, or I could do what I did to the next person I drew.
All I did was a quick predraw WITH A blue COLORSTICK like I did above,
Then, I went into it with a marker and touched up the colors a bit:

Now, here's the exciting stuff I just got into.
I'll show you 3 pictures that I drew on the subway (in various stages of completion)
using the colorstick method I described above.

I didn't like them as much as the pictures I drew above.
So when I got home, I played with them, making them more fun, more CAR-I-CA-TUREEE.
This is what makes Caricaturing fun to do. An Art.
And once again I have to say
that the bigger exaggerations
look more like the person
than the ones that are more 'accurate'.

Here's a happy guy who caught me drawing him:

And here's a better picture of that happy guy:

Here's a picture that I completely finished on the train:

And here's an embellished picture that I drew based on the picture above:

Here's a picture of a man I caught quickly on the train:

And here's a better exaggeration of the picture above:

What a pleasant way to end my work-year.

For New Year's Eve last night,
I was hired to draw Caricatures at YMCA
in New Rochelle for 'First Night',
a celebration of Arts and Community.
Newly in a building well set up to help a Community get together,
I was surprised that one of my subjects was The Mayor.
I drew Mayor Noam Bramson with his wife and children,
and I was pleased to see, as is usually the case, that Celebrities are real people.
He was pleasant, personable, appreciative, and even FUN!

Then, first call this morning was from a man in New Jersey - I had done Face-Painting for him twice already, and he's looking to hire me again. This makes me feel so appreciated. What a fine way to start the new year.

I already have jobs booked throughout 2007,
And I know that more jobs are always coming in,
I'm confident that I really am good enough to do my jobs,
even though I'm also enjoooooyyyying my path of self development.
Artistically, Personally, Physically.
This is going to be a really good year.
I wonder if it can even be WONDERfull. Hahaha. Written that way, I see that being 'full of wonder' doesn't mean I'd finally have everything perfect. I know I can wonder:-)

What I was saying is that I wonder if this might finally be the year when I acheive the successes of my wildest dreams. I'm feeling like it is possible.

Let me quote a line I picked up while watching Jack La-Lanne on TV a few weeks ago:
"Anything in Life is Possible
if you Make It Happen."

I finally went through some of the papers around here.

Smile, There are so many piles of papers around here, that I'm always going through something.
Anyway, I went through a pile of papers and came across a picture I drew a few months ago of the Caricaturist Carl Davis.
I told him I'd mail it to him when I got a chance. This was my chance.

But in only a few months time, my coloring has developed so much that I was no longer content with the picture.
Amazing how much more depth and excitement I got when I went back into the very same drawing and perked it up with more colors today. I wish I had scanned the old mush, so you could see the difference. Too late now - I already drew right over it. At least you can see the finished picture before I mail it out.

To Hire this Artist:
(516)579-4706
visualdust@gmail.com

Here I am, vacation.
I guess that means overeating. Because right now I am noshing, something I don't usually do.
I have to be careful because parties (party food, birthday cake) are not once-a-year events for me.
If I let occasions dictate my food, I'd be quite unhealthy. But once in a while.
These Terra-Chips are great. Yum.

While eating this stuff, I drew up a few new samples. I always seem to want new samples these days.
A man:

A woman:

And another one:

I've been looking through some piles of papers here.
To organize them - what to keep, what to throw out, where to put them.
It's slow going. Especially since I keep finding interesting papers which give me other things to do.

One that I just explored was a little snip of paper that I had written a long time ago.
It said "Shading black people? Use black stripes horizontal or vertical."

Hmmm, that's interesting.
Figuring out how to do simple line drawings
quickly
is always a concern.
Many years ago, I decided that
so called white people aren't white like the paper.
Who's to say where we draw the line - I mean, who'se to say which people must be colored in?
So I wouldn't color in anybody.

Went to a few gigs,
shocked a few black people
who complained directly to me.
Heard others laughing that
that's what they'd look like if they were white.
Apparently, they insisted on seeing themselves colored in.
So a picture like this wasn't appreciated:

Now I try to bring along brown paper.
So it doesn't take any longer to draw a black person
than it takes to draw a white person:
(How many can you do per hour
is a concern for many people who pay me by the hour)

Turns out that I really enjoy drawing on the brown paper, too.

I'll even use it if I'm coloring in the pictures.

You can see that this brown paper works very well
for the paying client, the sitting guest, and the artist.
A win win win situation.

But I like to have many options.
I was intrigued by this note that I had written back when I was still searching for my solution.
I decided to try it.

Aghk. My first attempt took a long time to draw. And it came out looking like the person was made of wood, anyway. Nobody would want a picture like this:

What could I have been thinking, I thought.
And I tried again. I drew the vertical stripes simpler, quicker.
This is what I came up with. I like it. It's one more tool in my pocket:

Has it only been a day since my last entry
when I didn't even know that it was Saturday?
Time changes it's speed if I don't have a gig.

This evening I was watching tv.
A friend brought over a movie, Click.
Here's what I was doodling while watching: