Public Appearances Past and Present

If you are in the Cary area, you might want to drop by Brilliant Sky's 3rd Anniversary celebration, for I will be there drawing souvenir sketches and carton portraits for the kids. The pictures below are from the PDQ opening from a few weeks ago.

Manga Cartoon Portrait event log

Thank you to all the parents and kids that came by and stopped at the Manga Cartoon Portraits tent for their custom drawings! The rain stayed away and had a pleasant afternoon drawing 58 live cartoon portraits (even managed to document a few with photos) from 12:00 pm to 3:30 pm at the Cary Police Department Project Phoenix event in Wrenn Drive last Saturday. 55 drawing requests were from children and teens, and the remaining 3 were from adult guests. Most popular fantasy themes were princesses and mermaids for the girls. Most boys asked to be drawn as ninjas, archers, or soccer players. While younger kids favored fantasy themes, older kids and teen guests tended to favor fairly straightforward cartoon abstraction ("Draw me just the way I am"). Given the popularity of superheroes, there was a request for an original superhero, Iron Man, and Super Girl drawings. Original requests that stuck in my mind:
- Hippogriff rider (Think Harry Potter)
- Draw me with a Lion.
- Draw me with Wolves.
Since we were located on the far end of the venue, we had a bit of a slow start but the line grew in no time and my average speed for the day was 16.5 souvenir speed sketches per hour.

Notes for future events:
- Do not forget bug repellent for outdoor events.
- Duct tape was useful for affixing signs and portrait samples to the table.
- Setting the back of my chair towards the waiting line and using an easel would improve visibility of the drawing process for the audience. I went with a minimalist approach and relied on clipboards for this event.
- Chosen support was 8.5" X 11" card stock. Finished drawings were protected with a ledger size paper sleeve featuring a mermaid on one side and a dragon on the other.

Gallery of Manga Cartoon Portraits of the Day

Thank you very much to everybody that stopped by and patiently waited to get their cartoon portraits drawn at the live caricature booth at the Art Festival in Downtown Naples earlier today.
Next time, I will try flipping this arrangement 180 degrees, so that visitors passing by can more easily observe the cartoon drawing process.
The first Dragon Ninja of the day knows how to ride in style.
Cartoon portrait before and after the coloring step.
Our second Dragon Ninja of the day happily casting some blue flame Avatar-style.
Just realized that this was the only mermaid portrait today. Often this particular request is quite popular among the girls. Guess the girl that wanted to be a fairy mermaid (a novel request that has been increasing in popularity in its own right) changed her mind, or did not return to the booth after all.
Surfer Girl cartoon portrait. It had been a while since I got this particular request.

Dragon Ninja #3: our single Kunoichi of the day sporting dual swords, shuriken in hand, and a naginata on her back.
A nice change of pace, a straight cartoon portrait drawn with watersoluble graphite (Caran D'Ache Technalo 3B lead) and a waterbrush.
Crimson Dragon Ninja ready for anything with his 4 swords and handful shuriken ready for a quick-strike.
Straight colored cartoon portrait.
Drawing the hair on this princess portrait was a lot of fun.
And we finished the day with yet another Dragon Ninja. Remember our two Japanese words for the day are kunoichi= "female ninja" and shuriken=""sword hidden in the hand" or "Throwing star". Enjoy your drawings and continue practicing your sketching skills as often as you can. Take your sketchbook and some drawing tools along everywhere you go.

So when and where could I get a Manga Cartoon Portrait drawn in Naples next?

Since I got this question a few times during the Art Festival this past weekend, I thought I would let local readers and visitors know that I will set up my next live caricature tent at the upcoming Downtown Naples Festival of the Arts on March 26th and 27th from 10 am to 5:00 pm. Drop by if you or your kids would like to get drawn as Manga-style cartoons or just to say hi. Always love catching up with past guests and models. Don't forget that you can also get your pet dog drawn, and that I could also draw a cartoon portrait of non-attending models from photos (2 or 3 snapshots would preferable to get a better sense of the subject, for the tiny photos in digital phones often do not provide enough information). I was told that they make pretty fun unconventional gifts.For a list of upcoming Cartoon Sketching classes and entertainment options please check the information bar to the right.

Caricature Stand at 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival and some Free Coloring-sketching activity pages

Spent Saturday drawing manga-style caricatures at the 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival in North Naples. Drew my fist set of twins on a single page, a colored tiger ninja warrior, a few straight portraits, and a couple of ninja cartoon portraits for Festival volunteers.
Even took a couple of reference shots of this lady bug that visited the caricature station later in the day.
Only managed to scan the caricature I drew of my mom from today's batch of cartoon portraits. So dear guests if you have the time and inclination to send me a scan or picture of your caricatures, I would be happy to add them to this post. Spent the rest of the time at the Festival drawing the following batch of coloring/sketch page templates for next week's classes. Feel free to print as many as you like on 8.5" X 11" paper or card stock to tackle the creative challenges below.
Draw a suitable background and color this Chinese Dragon.
Draw an action scene around this Ninja.
"What is this Zoo Keeper trying to catch with his net?"
"What is this Forest Guardian getting ready for?"
Sketch a castle for this Princess.
Draw an underwater scene around this armored mermaid.
Draw a magical garden filled with other fantasy creatures behind this butterfly fairy.
For this seated Mermaid sketch page: add graceful scales to her tail and draw what is catching her attention on the right side of the page.
For the Unicorn sketch page: add details and texture to the unicorn outline and draw a fantasy background castle at the end of the road.
This Rabbit template could be folded in half and used as a greeting card for Easter and/or Mother's day with some further decorations applied with markers and glitter glue. Naples readers: I will be going back to the Mercato from 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday, so feel free to drop by to say hi or get your live caricature done in a jiffy.

Cartoon Portrait Warm Up and Upcoming Public Event

Been practicing my speed sketching skills for the upcoming 15th Annual Downtown Naples New Year’s Art Fair. I will be in the live art area on 5th Avenue South from 10 am to 5 pm on the 1st and 2nd of January of 2011. Drop by to welcome the New Year and get your cartoon portrait drawn in a jiffy.Sharpie cartoon portrait of a couple of students at the end-of-the year party for the After School program.
Graphite portrait based on a photo.

A good reason to go to the mall

Even for cartoon sketching, it is advisable to spend some time observing real life and draw from those observations to give variety and believability to cartoon faces.
Doodling some faces and trying out a Dixon Markette, caricature marker, while waiting at the mall.
Watching people walk by, I took the opportunity to make quick sketches with a Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brush pen.