First of the top ten faces of the year (according to the International Society of Caricature Artists)

Alex Reid may not be well known in America but he's a big star in the U.K. for kickboxing. He's also done some acting, including porn. He's married to Katie Price who is famous on her own (although I'm not sure what for) and the two of them are in the tabloids over there a lot. I've had trouble getting the image to show here but clicking this link will show it.
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs719.snc4/63896_1690316093117_1094174440_1912008_4190836_s.jpg

Ellen Degeneres Caricature

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This caricature of Ellen Degeneres was drawn in response to her showing several caricatuers of her she did not like. The ISCA put out a call to send drawings of her. This was first drawn in marker on 8 1/2"11" paper and scanned. Color was added in Corel Painter.

Check out Ellen's response to published caricatures of her:

Ellen's Newspapers Caricatures & "What's Wrong With These Photos?" on TEDS (2010-03-18) [Part 2/5]

Color Digital Group Caricature

I don't know what I did wrong but I had a hard time loading this from my computer. It was saved as a jpeg which I put on a usb and had printed at Staples. Debbie the copy person there was very helpful but she said she could only save as a bmp so I went to a private copy shop and they scanned my line drawing and saved it as both a bmp and a jpeg. I'm sure it was the jpeg that I worked on to add the color. It printed fine and loaded to Facebook with no problem but when I tried to load the file I got failed in the blue box.

My first large group digital caricature from photos

This is the outline for a group caricature drawing which I colored in  Corel Painter. The group is all the groomsmen, bride and groom and groom's father. They all grew up on or near the same street. This will be used as gifts for the men in the wedding party.
For some reason I can't upload the color version so for now this will do. Since this is the first large thing I've done in Painter I had some problems and didn't really have time to figure it all out digitally since I was on deadline. After getting the likenesses to my satisfaction I printed them out small and pasted them up the old fashioned way following my rough sketch. I then copied it and drew the bodies on the copy.
I think my main mistake was making the faces all different files instead of layers in the same one. Also had a problem combining the text layers so I ended up printing the lettering out and tracing it by hand onto the drawing paper. Then I had someone scan it since I don't have a big scanner yet. Then I finished it in Painter. The coloring part went pretty fast. I didn't have time to be real creative with the color but I'm still pretty happy with the result and the client was happy.
For now you can see the color version on my Shorty Robinson Facebook account.

Relaxing in the (first) Bizzard of 2010

On Superbowl Sunday 2010  (whoops, Big Game Sunday) the sun shown bright over New Jersey after about two feet of snow on Saturday. Attached is a photo of me sitting in our flower bed in the snow. After this I rolled around in the snow and then jumped in the warm  pool.

Employee Appreciation Wall of Fame

These caricature drawings were done as part of an employee recognition gallery at Americhoice Health Insurance in Philadelphia. When I came to draw I sat in a conference room where I was easily seen by passersby and since people had to sign up for a time there were employees from all over the building stopping in and getting a few laughs. These were done in about seven to ten minutes each.

Historian Howard Zinn Dies

This is a quick caricature of Howard Zinn, who has been teaching, writing about history, and advocating for truth and fairness for many years. His book A People's History of the United States shows history as seen by some of the people who have been on the losing end such as American Indians.

Digital Caricature sketch of Jack Bauer

This drawing of 24's Kiefer Southerland as Jack Bauer was done on the computer using a Wacom tablet and Painter X. 24 is one of a few shows I watch, and presently the only drama. It really is a live action cartoon. He heals almost as fast as Popeye or any other cartoon character. Even though it's goofy and often predictable it still is entertaining.

Custom caricature comic books

When our friend T. McLaughlin turned fifty I made a short comic book of some events from his life using caricatures of him and other.. This is a great way to commemorate stories about a colorful character. They don't come much more colorful than T.

Gift Caricature from photos

This is an example of a detailed gift caricature done from photos. When doing such a drawing I find it best to have a few photos of the model, from different views, and with at least one close up (just a face) showing a good expression characteristic of that person. Caricatures from photos are more difficult than those drawn live, but they can still be fun because you can add lots of details that can't be put in at a party.

Party caricature

This is an example of my party caricature style. When I draw at parties or other events I normally draw about 12-15 people per hour in black and white and about 6-8 per hour in color.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

This portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was done with acrylics to commemorate King Day at Camden NJ High School in the late 80's when I was teaching art there.
Yesterday's (January 17, 2010) Philadelphia Inquirer had a commentary by John Timpane titled The Sermon We Ignore.
His premise is that we celebrate "I have a dream," but our society ignores or suppresses the idea that King advocated that we need to reform our economic and social system.
On philly.com I couldn't find the link to this article, but the newspaper version mentions a link to a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam" (http://go.philly.com/beyondvietnam).
Dr. King says in this speech "We must begin the shift from a 'thing oriented' society to a 'person oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
Yesterday's article cited an April 21, 1967 editorial in Life magazine that called the sermon "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." That type of criticism sounds like the Bush/Chaney Axis of Weasel nonsense that anyone criticizing them is un-American. This fear tactic is what caused the spineless Democrats to join the rush to war without questioning the false reasoning and phony rational. Warmongers always seem to try and paint anyone against war as weak. We need to tell our leaders we do not want our money going for the destruction of other people and places.
If instead of going to war we sent teams of educators, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc to Iraq and Afghanistan we could win the hearts of the people and do some real good. Right now our military is having a hard time helping the Afghans to defend themselves because so few of them are literate.