Caroline Needs To Be Committed

I do my share of blog surfing around the net - it's one way that I've gotten the attention of a number of you. I've seen a wide variety of blogs focusing on number of different "themes". One of the subjects that I have seen are blogs dealing with weight loss.

(Ouch! - I don't like the subject - don't even like typing the words: "weight loss". Ouch again!)

But this is Caroline's chosen blog theme and she wanted me to create a doodle for a header on Caroline's Commitment. What was I going to say... "No"? I couldn't do that. After all, Caroline already had me create something to celebrate her parent's anniversary. So, despite my aversion to the... ummm, subject at hand, I acquiesced and went to doodling.

This was another carica- ture that went fairly easy. The lion tamer idea was something that I suggested. I'm glad that Caroline let me go with it, AND I'm looking forward to seeing the doodle at the top of her blog. Go ahead and check it out. Leave her a note of encouragement, because the last I read she needed a little motivation. (As if my doodle wasn't enough for that?)

Thanks Caroline for trusting me on a second go around. Good luck on the... the... weight loss thing. (OUCH!)

One Big Circus Act!

This project had my attention for some time.

Kim, a friend from several years back, saw my blog and contacted me about drawing an illustration of her daughter's school class. This drawing is suppose to be auctioned off as a fund raiser or something for the school.

When I told her how much I would have to charge to draw it (even with the long-time-friends discount), I actually thought she would decide not to go through with it - which, honestly, was fine with me because I knew it would take me a while to get it done. But, lo and behold, Kim talked it over with some of the parents and they decided that they wanted me to make it happen. So, I was committed.

Again, this one took some time! 23 little faces and the teacher to boot - lots of time staring at all those faces. The circus theme was my idea. I thought it gave me a chance for some fun creativity. I also spent some time looking at photos of circus acts on the web - trying to come up with ideas to draw each little clown student doing something different. Just fitting them all in was a real task. I had to draw this project at a larger size than I normally do - 14x17. This is actually a photo that I took of the drawing. It was too large to fit onto the face of my scanner.

I would post the class photo that Kim sent me, but that probably wouldn't be appreciated by the parents, especially since the photo includes their last names and stuff. (What a shame that we have to worry about such things for our children - don't you agree?) I wish you could see the photo so that you could compare the faces with the illustration.

Children are so much harder than adults for me to illustrate. Their faces are too smooth and stuff. Adults often have an ugliness that easy to capture in a caricature. Give me an ugly face to draw and I'm happy.

BTW:If you're someone that I've already drawn, I'll leave it to your imagination as to whether or not your face made me happy. In all fairness, my face would be a project that would normally make me giddy - if it weren't for the fact that it's my eye-balls that are looking at it when I pass by a mirror.

Thanks Kim for making contact again, and for choosing me. I hope that it raises a lot of money for the school.