Merry Chrimbo & Happy New Year

Strewth , it has been an age since I  have had a chance to get on this computer! so much has happened it is hard to know where to start. I have had to get a "Real Job" as most of the people I know tell me? I finished at the Theme Parks and then could not get enough Fairs/ Fetes and parties to pay the bills, so I had  to take the plunge in to mundane work. I am now a Service Engineer for a Health and Safety company? Unfortunately a normal Job seems to suck all the artistic life out of me, leaving very little time or inclination during the rest of the week to do anything!
I now have to pin my hopes on a lottery win, so I do not have to work, and can feel artistic again,  unless I could find a job that combines drawing/Art and work all together that would pay the bills and doesn't need any art qualifications higher than A level, so if you know of any in the Oxfordshire area please E-Mail or comment and I will have a look.
I have just struggled to do a few things such as this face  to be used as a Beer Sign at a do.

 and this is an old T-Shirt picture I  knocked up some 11 years ago now while I was on detachment in that wonderful world of OZ.

 a Quick pencil sketch of my new boss? I am still their so he must of liked it?

 and finally one of my usual Cartoon Style caricatures for a lady I work with who is a very good photographer and produced amazing Framed photo's of everyone within the company as Christmas presents from our Xmas corporate day out.

Well I must leave now,but would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and hope that 2012 is a better year, for not only this mad world, but for all of you and just maybe, me?

Summers over.

Hi all, it looks like after that last late small heat wave, our summer is over. The seasons do seem to be going a bit out of sync of late. Anyway here are a few of my daily sketches I do to keep my hand in, I draw with what ever comes to hand, pencil , marker, Biro. I don,t always get a good likeness but sometimes the reference photo is not that good either, but it is all good practice and style forming. They should be the Hoff, Mr Doherty (Big Bro winner), Jeremy Kyle, and finished with Steve Jobs (RIP).

I better start my winter preparations around the garden before the snow comes! Bye for now.

September Blues

The caricature drawing in the theme parks has come to an end for me, so I will have to find other avenues for my pens to let rip. I was lucky enough to do Charlbury Street fair last weekend which was great fun and one of the best organised and pleasurable village fairs I have ever been to, it took me back to when I was a lad and lived in a little village. The weather stayed nice as well which made the day.

To practice I generally just draw any head that springs to mind and cover an A3 piece of paper although the bottom character(with black hair) was based on a caricature artist called Mike Carlon.

I have tried to post last week but could not get any pictures to load up so left it in frustration in the end. This week things seem to be working better. Below is a quick theme park style drawing of one of the staff.

I also was asked to do a quick jokey cartoon of a couple of Chefs, so I did theme park style heads and put them into Photo shop over a picture? not the best but time was short.



Finally managed to get something down on this blog so I am going to quit while I am ahead.
Best Wishes to all.

Fruit -Catures

Hi All, it seems an age since I have had a chance to blog, but I thought I would get a quick rant off now why I had a few moments alone on the PC. I never seem to get a chance to get on the main house PC as I have 2 teenage children who although they have their own laptops always have to do work on mine because its attached to 3 different printers and 4 different scanners although everything is WiFi, they tell me its about file formats and the like??? Also my wife spends a lot of time on it , so to free up that time I have bought her the Apple iPad 2, which she seems to like and I will no doubt get a go on!
 I like lots of others follow a number of other blogs on a weekly bases, but I have noticed everyone has gone quiet this year as I guess they are very busy working. One inparticular I follow is Pencil Dreams by Steve Hearn who is an exceptional Caricature Artist and daily blogger( well worth a visit). The other day he posted a Banana-cature, which I thought was neat so I had a go myself on a Pear? not just any old pear though, this one was grown by myself. Although I have quite a small garden I love the thought of growing my own fruit, and last year I invested in a pear tree only to get Pear drop and got none. This year I have looked after it and have a small crop of 13 pears, although they are a bit hard?

I have now put him in a brown paper bag to see if it softens and hopefully will taste nice?

Work wise I am still doing Caricatures at Warwick Castle and  just for fun I have drawn the Jester (Barry- Nice guy) below a few times but thought I would do him digitally. This is still a work in progress as I am still learning about backgrounds and Lettering in Photshop.

Time is up for now but  I do hope to be back soon.

Best Wishes.



Theme Park Examples

Had a problem last week adding Photos to the blog, but it all seems to be working at the moment so I will try and add last weeks now. Thought I would just put up a few Theme Park style caricatures which I tend to do while its not busy. I usually rough a pencil sketch on my board and leave it there for 1/2 an hour to try and entice someone to have one? Then I ink it in and leave for another 1/2 an Hour, then colour it in and again , you get the picture ! Not all the likenesses are that great as sometimes my reference is a bit obscure or just crap! I liked doing Ceelo Green at the bottom the best.

I have stopped using the Theme park paper as it is all different at each park and they get upset if I display the wrong park paper? so I am just using blank paper now so I can use them any where , although they get upset with that at a few?

Finally managed to get a caricature I drew of a fellow colleague at Chessington on here I think the file format was to big?

This was just a quick note and attempt to get some drawings on, so Bye for now.

Still Busy in the Theme Parks

Hi all, I am still banging out lots of cute drawings of small children( but not really caricatures) which I  do get a lot of praise and thanks from all concerned.  I have now got a much better appreciation of how difficult it is to do what we do, the various styles we all have and how customers can be so demanding of what they want, but most of all I think I am Cheap!. The other day I got to draw a family of 5, and started off very tame, but by the end had gone quite extreme as they warmed to me. They soon changed their opinions by the end and I don't think they appreciated the last 2, but still payed, as I am cheap. I do love reading other artists blogs about difficult customers or funny stories of things that happen, I myself the other day at Warwick Castle had a Duck attack my customer around the ankles as they sat for me, she was laughing a lot about it, which made it easy to draw her smiling! ( Who on earth put the bread around the chair?)
I have been useless this week taking pictures and haven't managed any, even though I got to draw some really interesting faces, none more so than a gentleman called Arther who was enjoying his 80th birthday and was a great sport.



I have been trying to add a couple of pictures but not having much luck at present so I will try later in the week, Best wishes to all.

Busy Half Term Week

Well the half term week was a very busy time in the theme parks, which as one would expect where full of kids enjoying themselves. Quite a few had Caricatures done by myself and my co-workers, so thank you all for sitting down  and letting us caricaturize you, my fingers now need a rest. It was a much better week than last with no bad customers at all! I have been reading Joe Bluhm's blog from years ago about working in the Florida Theme parks and everything he Say's is true and really just knocking out cute drawings may pay the bills but it does not give the artist any satisfaction at all. Occasionally I just let rip and do something a little more extreme and see how it is received and up to now everyone has still paid? so obviously I need to push it further to get the shock factor. Enough ramblings for now here is a selection of Caricatures done over the last week but I still forget to take everyone I do and their are know extreme cases here which is a shame.

I  also got to do a leaving cartoon for this lady who I think was very pleased with it.

And finally I do get to work in some lovely surroundings, such as Warwick Castle and thought I would snap this Peacock standing majestically on an Urn. I still haven't got a picture of one with its feathers all opened out but if I do I will post it on here.

Have a good week to all. 

A Hard Day at the Office

I have now been doing live caricaturing for a couple of months and most days are quite good although it would be nice to have a steady stream of clients rather than spells of inactivity and then mad rushes before its time to close, but the other day I had a "Bad Day at the Office". It all started early on with a lady saying she thought I was drawing her daughter to old? I had only drawn an eye and two eyebrows? I said why didn't she wait till I had finished and if she did not like it she did not have to pay for it, but she was still not happy. Luckily God intervened and opened the heavens on all of us including the drawing which was ruined. With this I suggested we part company as I do not think we were ever going to agree. I then went on to produce a couple of just OK caricatures of customers that I got that feeling they did not really like them but that is my fault and I probably should of taken a break to recharge but I soldiered on. Then a couple came who have been my worst customers so far. They wanted a double colour caricature which I was happy to do and the lady sat down and gave her list of demands that I had to make her look beautiful she wanted to be drawn with her hair down but was not prepared to put it down, don't do me with a big nose, chin, or forehead of which she had all 3. I started but within about 2 seconds she was moving all over talking to her boyfriend so I could only see the back of her head? I asked if she could just stay still for a minute so she tried but put her hands over her face, she then lent forward to look at what I had done and said i had given her a big nose and she didn't want it and wouldn't pay. We then chatted about if she really wanted this and agreed to not continue. Her boyfriend on the other hand really wanted one and I drew him and coloured him in with a constant barrage of abuse from his girl friend ending in him loving it but his girl friend saying it looked nothing like him and I had deliberately given him a big nose and pointy chin. With this I asked the crowd if anyone thought it looked like him and was it any good? they all told her it did and was very good! Thank you crowd. I know the professionals out there would say I have to man up and take it and I need to improve but it is very easy to fall into the trap of producing cute, nice drawings that will not offend and I hear the comment all the time, its a cartoon version of the person not a caricature? I do change my style depending on who sits down in front of me and how old they are and generally only do more extreme Caricatures on older men after asking them first if they want me to go mad.  Any way enough moaning from me its just good to get it off my chest as a way of therapy. Here are a few examples of what I have been up to with what can only be said are extremely nice people.

That's all for now folks keep stopping by and sorry for my moan.

Getting into a pattern

Working the Theme Parks has been great fun but I have been moved around a lot mainly filling in for Artists who are Off or Ill, but I seem to of settled down to Two days at Warwick Castle, 2 Days at Thorpe Park and a day at Chessington. I am still amazed at the many varying type of faces I see each day, but there are many who walk right by with fantastic faces to Caricature but I think they know ?
I am still rubbish at asking to take a photo of the caricature at the end but I did manage to snap a couple and a quick view of the new position at Warwick castle for us in the main courtyard. Its not finished but it will do for now.

Well another rushed blog so people know I am still alive and drawing, hope everyone has a good week, best wishes.

Theme Park Dreams

I have been really busy of late even working through my 2 days off to get the chance of drawing more.I have now taken an old camera with me in the hope of taking a few pictures of some of my handy work, but alas I have only managed one photo of my work?  I just get so into doing them I forget to ask for a photo! Below is the set up at Warwick Castle where at present I am drawing for two days a week (Wed/Thurs), next is the one and only photo of a caricature by me at Thorpe Park (Fri/ Sun) and I am at Chessington WOA on Saturdays.The last picture is of a fellow Caricature artist, Tom, who is really super talented and quicker than anyone I have seen yet with a line quality that is crystal clear.

I was hoping working at a Theme Park would give me a constant stream of people to Draw but this is not the case? people are often put off by the price or that they do not want to carry a picture round all day or leave it till the end of the day when there is usually a que so they will not wait. I now know that I can sit there often for 2 or 3 hours doing nothing (other than giving park directions )and then be maxed out at the end of the day for 2 hours. Also the Parks intake of people varies so much depending on school holidays, bank holidays and weather, the last is my main concern as I have been very lucky this year and have not been rained off once. If that wonderful team at Alton towers or anyone who has got Theme park experience  can give any advice I am all ears.

Kind Regards

Royal Wedding and Day Off

My apologies for no blogging but I have been none stop at the theme parks, I have just not had the time?
I managed to get Friday off to catch up on sleep and jobs waiting for me to do around the house! and of course watch the Royal Wedding. I wish the young couple a happy and long life and hope the worlds media treat them with respect and give them a break as at the end of the day they are just like everyone else, with a job most of us would not really want to do. I have done a quick Theme Park style caricature of the couple as if they had asked at a stand?

If they had popped by their would of been no charge! anyway I hope to start getting my act together and taking photos of as many customer Caricatures as I can get and posting them on here? but for now best wishes to all.

New Found Respect

I have been as busy as a bee, over the last two weeks? I have managed to get myself the job I have been after for almost a year and that is as a Caricature Artist at a Theme Park. It all happened so quick, it has taken me by complete surprise! At present I am being moved around to different ones each couple of days but I am sure once the Theme Parks start to get busy it will be all hands on deck and I will stay at just one of them most of the time. My new found respect for Live Drawing Caricature Artists is just how busy and quick you need to be at drawing and it is very hard to please everyone all the time. I have always thought it easy to snap off a photo each time you do one, but in reality you are so busy getting the next customer set up you forget or just do not get a chance.
Below is the entrance to Thorpe Park, one of the parks I am drawing at.

The next is the set up at Chessington World of Adventure although when the season is fully under way their will be 3 or 4 caricature artists working each with their own umbrella/easel etc.

and finally for now all I could muster for caricaturama 3ooo was the Biro drawing below, although I quite like it but do not have any time to colour or digitally paint on to it.

I am sorry I have no pictures of the Caricatures I have Drawn but I promise to try harder for next time. Thanks for looking in and  Best Wishes to all.