Custom "Thank You" card

Just a quick job I did over the phone. Got the request to sketch a thank you card for someone that had gone above and beyond at work, so the concept is "handsome nerdy" guy that hang the moon in the sky for the thankful recipient. The request was for a black and white illustration after the client couldn't find the exact card she wanted at Hallmark. The line work was drawn with my trusted Sakura Pigma Sensei 06 pen. Since I had many of my coloring tools laid out on my drafting table already, the color version was done for fun. I applied a Copic Sketch marker for the skin tone, Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush artist pens for the clothing and lettering, and a Prismacolor Premier double ended marker for the ground.

The advantage of the pigmented India inks of the Pitt pens is that they do not bleed through the back of the card stock. The alcohol based inks of the Copic Sketch and Prismacolor show through the back of the front of the card. Making custom greeting cards, is a good project for budding artists to exercise their illustration skills and apply their creativity in giving shape to their clients visions. You can have your kids work on birthday cards, thank you notes, and holiday greeting cards on rainy days, so that they do not have to rush through at the last minute.

Custom Marker Sketchbook for Classroom use

Made a few 6" X 9"  booklets using pages from a Canson XL Marker pad, folded them in halves, and stapled it with a cardstock cover to make some marker sketchbooks for upcoming track out classes at the Art Center.

Usually I dedicate the first few pages of a sketchbook for color reference charts. Prismacolor double ended markers lay down bright sample swatches that do not bleed through the 18 lb marker paper, but they are still visible through the translucent sheet which is suitable for tracing tasks. You can easily slip some line art underneath, and copy the image with a marker-proof pen like a Sakura Pigma Sensei drawing pen for coloring later.

The Chartpak AD markers look quite bold on this paper, but they give off a much stronger chemical solvent smell while being applied.

Sample cartoon portrait colored with the Chartpak AD markers. The sleek paper surface allows for quick and smooth uniform coverage.

Caricature Stand at 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival - Day 2 Photo Journal

Despite a bit of rain early in the morning and a rather windy start that lead to me stow away the sun umbrella under the table, we enjoyed a fairly nice day on the second day of the Art Festival. Had a pretty good spot between the live music station and the Copper & Hand Blown Glass tent of sculptor John Zidek who also proved to be quite an entertaining neighboor.
Hmm maybe I should reconsider my equipment set up, but it was a good opportunity to test the performance of a wide variety of coloring tools for creating live caricatures. Even remembered to document my favorite colored caricatures with a digital camera.
Again relied on my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.6 mm and 1.0 mm manga drawing pens to draw all the cartoon portraits of the day.
Colored with Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist pens and Prismacolor Double-Ended Art markers.
Since the selection of markers on hand did not include lighter hues of pink, the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils came quite handy in laying down subtler tones with more interesting texture. Happy Birthday Bishop!
The cartoon portrait of these siblings should make nice gift for their grandma. My thanks to all the guests that stopped by to get drawn or just say hi.

Caricature Stand and Upcoming ARTSCool 2011 Cartoon Sketching Classes

A few shots of my caricature tent at the 15th Annual Downtown Naples New Year’s Art Fair.We enjoyed a wonderful weather over the weekend. A tad gusty on Saturday. Glad I had brought my packing tape to secure the samples to the table.
Found the experience quite productive and informative regarding the logistics, booth organization, and customer expectations of a caricature artist in Naples downtown area.
For example, we increased visibility of the caricature drawing process by removing the side and rear walls of the tent from Saturday to Sunday.
My tent neighbors: the "Live Art" group. The caricature tent was short on signage and display samples on Saturday.
Had to put together this poster sign to promote my summer classes and showcase the caricature samples to potential customers in a hurry for Sunday. Also handed out lots of Artist Trading Cards (ATC) that doubled as business cards and listed the dates and times for my upcoming ARTScool 2011 classes.
As far as the most frequently used tools: I relied on my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 06 and 1.0 mm pens for most of the caricatures.
Dragon Knight caricature colored with Prismacolor Double Ended markers and Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush pens.
Was pleasantly surprised when asked to do a caricature of this cute Maltese dog with a snagle tooth.
Going to have to brush up on my animal anatomy to get faster at my pet cartooning. Had a couple of surprise visitors from the other coast.
Two other satisfied customers with their fantasy caricatures at the New Year's Art Fair: Fairy Mermaid and Ninja Mermaid.Camila coloring her picture with Crayola Super Tip markers. Nicole also colored her Ninja Mermaid and fire-breathing fish sidekick.My Cartoon Sketching classes for the kids summer Art Camp ARTScool 2011 at The von Liebig Art Center will be on June 13-17, July 11-15, and August 1-5.

Making some cartoon reference sheets, color charts, and colored samples for class

Getting the handout materials and colored samples ready for next week classes.
Used my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.4 mm to draw these cartoon face reference sheets.
Sample cartoon faces sheet drawn with a black Sharpie fine point pen.
Example of possible coloring approaches using a set of 20 Crayola Super Tip markers.
Crayola watercolor pencils color chart and cartoon portrait colored with Crayola Super Tip markers.
Sample colored with Prismacolor Double ended art markers. Started coloring the sample illustrations in my display poster to promote trend classes. While coloring takes longer, it does grab the attention more effectively.
Sharpie Fine Point Pens coloring chart and colored sample on white card stock.
I rely on this set of pens mainly for making customized name plates for each student.
Each name plate gets a random cartoon doodle on the back for inspiration or even serve as a tracing template during class doodling exercises.
With a bit of glitter and glue decorations.

Custom Greeting Cards made with Art Markers

Couple of custom greeting cards for Nicole & Camila colored with Prismacolor double ended markers.
Pretty happy with her birthday card.

Always keep a couple of reliable drawing tools handy, so you can get some sketching practice done at every opportunity that presents itself.

Succesful Open House at Jo-Ann store completed

Thanks for stopping by at the Jo-Ann's Open House, I enjoyed meeting so many potential students for the summer camp and sketching cartoon portraits for quite a few as a preview of our beginner's cartooning drawing and pop-up card classes.
Suggested materials to start practicing:
- Sakura Pigma Sensei drawing kit
- Canson Fanboy manga papers
- Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens Manga sets
- Prismacolor Double ended markers sets (Manga and Grays)
- 2 mm leadholder with B-2B leads
- sketchbooks/copy paper

Testing and selecting a Sketchbook for upcoming cartooning classes

Couple of sample sheets colored with Prismacolor markers to use as cartooning examples during ARTScool presentations.
Getting the class supplies ready for the ARTScool summer classes.
Already got most of the sketchbooks that we'll need for use in class after conducting the different doodle tests shown below.
Creapen brush pen tests.
Pigment pen doodle tests.
Pencil tests.







Several test pencil doodles were drawn on the sketch pad to make sure that wooden pencils and leadholders worked adequately on this support.
We'll have a few pre-printed pages with different panel layouts to speed up the lay down of different comicbook pages.



The 50 lb sketch paper is thin enough so that panel templates and reference images can still be seen clearly through each sheet. Thus I plan to have a few sketching worksheets for tracing exercises on these class sketchbooks.
This Canson Field Sketchbook features the same 50 lb (74 gsm) paper spiral bound with hard covers. The sturdier format makes it the more practical choice for use on-the-go and sketching on location. The lightweight Canson sketch paper readily accepted graphite pencils and pigmented drawing pens.