Cartoon Sketching Demo in the Screened Porch at Bond Park

Spent 3 hours last night at "Bands, Bites, and Boats at Bond Park" in this screened porch area.

There was plenty of room, overhead fans, table space, light, and art supplies for whatever crowd of kids decided to indulge in artistic endeavors as the band played and others opted to row in the evening.

Probably because of the lack of visibility, I had plenty of time to doodle some custom illustrations for coloring pages. For future events, we should probably put a bigger sign outside with sample pictures to entice more guests to come in.

Then in strolled Steve and asked if I could draw cartoon portraits of his party of six on a single sheet. Since I only had letter size card stock on hand, I drew him and his wife on one. their three kids on another, and their aunt on a third sheet. Happy birthday Steve! Glad I could brighten your family's evening.

Then this set of twins came in and had their portraits drawn while they colored some of the dragon coloring sheets I had on the activities table. Since they allowed me to choose, I drew one as a ninja and the other as a Jedi.

When i started to clean up, I offered them the pile of custom drawings I had made throughout the night to keep them busy until they can join us for some of the upcoming classes and camps at the Cary Arts Center. Also introduced the Center and passed brochures for ladies that stopped by to inquire about the nature our program for the evening. Thanks to everybody that stopped by.

Summer Art Camp Cartoon Portraits and Pop-Up Cards

Just concluded a Summer Art Camp focus on "Aquatic Creatures" and another on "Merfolk and fantasy creatures". By the end of the week, we were all pretty much done with the "fish/underwater" theme. Thus students in the older group got a cartoon portrait each, some continue drawing, and others made pop-up cards.








Several students in the younger group made multiple pop-up cards for different occasions.

Birthday Party Cartoon Portraits

Took a different approach with this Star Wars theme birthday party, and sketched the guests as they enjoyed the activities rather that have them stand still for their cartoon portraits.

A couple of guests did spot me in the corner as I drew, so they stood still for a couple of minutes resulting in a more precise likeness.

By the end of the two hour party, each guests had at least one Jedi portrait to take home.  Two girls went home with extra portraits: mermaid, fairy, and princess to round up the evening.

Gallery of Cartoon Portraits from Birthday Party

Had the pleasure of drawing some ninja and princess cartoon portraits for a TMNT-themed birthday party held at the Kids Together Park this past weekend. Most boys wanted to be either a ninja or a dragon knight. The girls went with Harry Potter or Disney Princesses requests.

 It took just a little over an hour to draw fourteen sketches with my trusty Sakura Pigma Sensei 06 pen.

45 Cartoon Portraits drawn under 3 hours at 5 Grade Graduation dinner

Event: 5 grade graduation dinner at school cafeteria 5-8 pm. Drew 40 students plus 5 adults and volunteers on 8.5" X 11" card stock with two 06 Sakura Pigma Sensei pens. Working side  by side with Melody Scruggs (Mimi the Clown) that I met tonight. She is very nice, and you should certainly give her a call if you need fun clean family entertainment services in the Triangle area.
Speed: 15 portraits/hour (though had some down time when no guest were waiting to be drawn). After drawing each portrait, I took a quick photo with my phone to keep track of my progress. Sorry for the blurry shots, for I did not allow the phone enough time to focus on some of them. Managed to document 41 of them, but my battery died by the time I completed the last four cartoon portraits for the evening.



Early in the evening my actual sketching speed was closer to 20 portraits/hour, and as the evening progress we tackled a few more detailed guests and special requests that required a bit more time per portrait.

Cartoon Portraits from Photo and Live drawing

On occasion, I might be asked to draw a portrait from a picture. The challenge is that you really need multiple pictures to get enough visual data on a given subject. It was lucky that it had been school picture day, so we had plenty of references on hand.

Ideally, I find it more efficient to draw my cartoon portraits live with the subject present for a few minutes. Most sketches take 4-5 minutes to complete.