This gallery contains 4 photos.
I do get asked to draw caricatures in some beautiful settings and this Party was one of those. Tucked away down a country lane in Kent nr Maidstone was a marque in a field of a beautiful farm house. A 21st fancy dress party and a 2 hour booking that turned into 3 hours, due [...]
This gallery contains 38 photos.
I spent 1-2 years travelling after I graduated from art college, more years ago than I care to remember, and unable to get a Graphic Design Job, decided to go travelling, for however long it took until the recession ended in the UK; which I didn’t know when that would be. Perth, Australia was the [...]
This gallery contains 5 photos.
These are illustrations for the children’s book written by Dr Raffaella Gabassi when she was eleven that I recently completed. From the foreward written by Raffaella “This is the story of a young girl, no more than 11 years old. Her family life is difficult. She finds it hard to make herself heard and to [...]
The New Willetts Farm Ice Cream Logo
Last year, at The Graphic Design Shop, we were asked to design the Willetts Farm Ice Cream Logo and, if successful, develop the brand and create their website. I offered 3 visuals with completely different ‘look and feel’s’ with a solid methodology behind the concepts. The owners picked this approach, which I think was the best! It will give the best future opportunity for development for the brand and deliver the personality and market positioning the owners were looking for. The look is traditional, sophisticated and fitted easily with several restrictions in the packaging that I had to take into consideration in the design. Anyway, it seems the rebranding has elevated sales and is increasing awareness of the product; meaning customers are making the choice to enjoy a delicious Willetts Farm Ice Cream, in some cases over the opposition, because the buyers experience the excellent taste of the product before it is tasted. A real eye candy temptation!
Pencil Portrait of Claire in Profile
The perfect time to draw people is when they are recovering from an operation, in my wife’s cousins case, that would be an operation on her foot. Claire very kindly, I think out of boredom and a desperate need for conversation and company, agreed for me to do some portrait sketches of her while she was recooperating. All good practice for me, as Claire settled down with a book, and let the work begin. Making sure my invalided model was in a comfortable seated position, with her foot carefully elevated, I concentrated on the other end. I have, if I am lucky and Claire agrees, 2-3 sittings in the peace of her beautiful home to experiment a bit, and hopefully produce some work with some potential. This week saw me produce 2 pencil sketches, but next week I might push myself a bit and produce a sketch in oils – and that is ramping up the equipment, skills and pressure quite a lot – let me tell you! I think I will be burning the midnight oil jeming up on the necessary techniques. This is, of course, leading to a target date – I want to enter a portrait into the next ‘Royal Society of Portrait Artists’ Exhibition in January. Wish me luck! I will be putting up the samples also at www.CaricaturesAndPortraits.co.uk going ahead for all to see.
Portrait Sketch of Claire in Pencil whilst she was reading
How many people have fallen asleep through your powerpoint presentations? Have you started noticing the yawns half-way through? So how do you improve the attention of your audience to make sure they get the message and not the extra sleep they missed out on the night before?
A new client contacted me from a scientific product sales company who wanted to liven up his presentations to sell pipets. You can picture the presentation now – probably quite dull and sleep inducing. And, if it wasn’t the first time he had presented to his clients, then he had an uphill struggle to keep them concentrating. So my solution was to come up with the idea of doing some cartoons for him to illustrate the jumps in technology since the late Victorian era. The only restriction I had was to show the main figure wearing a white coat (it made them look like a scientist). But there is so much you can do to capture a period; fashion, hairstyle, accessories and technology are just some of the props at the cartoonists disposal and of course the sign off image always has the person smiling. So think outside of the box and give a thought to your customers, engage a cartoonist to liven up your powerpoints, it is guaranteed to lift sales and spreads.
Recently I was asked by a regular client to do a caricature for one of their customers, who had a member of staff leaving, “It will be easy they just want a portrait” they said. ‘That can’t be right!’ I thought, ‘nobody just wants just a portrait for a caricature?’. Surely every customer wants to have all the bells and whistles added, the exfootballer scenario?, the interest in mountain biking? the stamp collector?, but no, after 4 rough attempts to prise some fun out of the picture by drawing him in a variety of ‘The Joker’ disguises (as he is the office comedian) they stuck to their guns and insisted I draw a straight portrait caricature, and as you can see (right) it came out surprisingly well – I wasn’t even allowed to have his arms waiving!
Concentrating on the ‘likeness’ pulled me into the picture to make it a success as I concentrated on the subtle skin tones and hues and exagerating the features only slightly. Apparenlty they are going to present the image on a mug and a framed A4 picture. I wonder if I have started a new genre of funny caricature portraits. You never know I might be taking the Mona lisa’s place in the Louve . . . or just hung in another happy customers flat.
I can’t say I have seen many caricatures of Gordon Brown. Or have I not been looking hard enough? I can’t really think of better material for any serious caricaturist to have a field day. I can’t remember a more hopeless Prime Minister in recent history, well my history anyway (born 1960). Every day seems to bring new disasters and calamities for him, I can’t believe he can take this much abuse. His face is made to be distorted, but maybe the choice of satirical scenarios is just too vast, and there just isn’t the media space to publish it all. Either way I think he should be sent on his way at the elections next year with a portfolio of visual reminders from his time in office. Watch this space!!!!
I became aware of caricatures when I started to study at art college in 1978. I hadn’t really noticed the illustration art form in the media before. Probably because I didn’t take much notice of the media. When I discovered the illustrators annuals from the Association of Illustrators my eyes where opened. Collected together in 300 pages where some of the best illustrations from that year. The annuals where like gold dust and were a feast for the imagination and eyes. Full of editorial and advertising, from cartoons to caricatures with all the current names and newcomers all on show in beautifully printed glossy annuals. Famous names like George hardy, Martin Handford, Gerald Scarfe, Ralph Steadman and Peter Brooks regularly appeared, all there to inspire us to greatness in our careers. They certainly inspired me and as others have since the days in the 80′s when I used to lovingly own and cherish these books. I wouldn’t say I have reached greatness yet, like so many of the other less well known artists who also appeared in the books. I wonder what happened to them?
Do you want to create a suprise for christmas and give a loved one something they will love to own? What about a fun caricature on a canvas print? It’s simple, you just send a picture of the person you want to have the caricature done of by email. Negotiate a timing. Give the caricaturist a few hints about the person of things that you would like included in the drawing and you get a hilarious portrait back that is created in a digital format that you can get printed on a t-shirt, canvas print, framed print, a mug or use it on your mobile, your twitter site or just about anywhere else you can think of. Definately a present your relative or friend will treasure for ever. Why not include tha family pet with the person. That would really be different, to have a caricature of the cat or dog too!
