Coffee Mugs

Can't get enough of live caricature... it's performance art (in my own little private personal space) It does have its dangers however. The narrow fellow below was very engaged in what he had to say to his coffee-pal and was none the wiser...however, his little boy (say age 5 or 6) was firmly perplexed at why that bearded man in the bandanna was furtively and continually peeking at his father. As I sketched there was a real danger that the boy would alert dad to the scary man with the black book... It's hard to know what to do in this situation, the chicken-s**t solution would be to abandon the drawing and move on, but having a mere child determine your artistic course of action is not what my Uncle Ike would have defined as manly. One could try to fool the kid by looking intently at someone else while drawing implying that his father was of no visual interest to me at all...(aside from being dishonest, this course can lead to severe vision problems, or a grievously confused image on your page)... My solution was to look at the child intently and assume a wacked-out crazy-clown frump of a smile. Doing this might have led him to cry, and all would be lost, however, after a pause of a few seconds, the tyke giggled back, and joined with me in my conspiracy against his dad. I win.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
This man below, I assume, has no children...
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
...chumpish.
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
This fellow (below) was just happy to be allowed to wear his new cap.
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Below are drawings from a different day, it was all female this time around; harder to do as you need to distort while maintaining some delicacy. Good challenge as always.
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
The last one here owes a bit to Anders Zorn... and I'm pleased to purloin.

Coffee Mugs

People in coffee shops (for the most part) will leave you to your own space, so doing these drawings is quite do-able. So respectful of personal space are they, that one of these fellows was merely a foot away from me on the same bench. Oblivious. I think. Can you tell which one? If he was not oblivious then he was tolerating me like the Nile Crocodile tolerates the Egyptian Plover: I got my drawing done, and he got his teeth cleaned he got his 15 minutes of fame.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
An unintended theme in this set was the forward placing of the sitter's hand. I had nothing to do with this.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
Some coffee shop people will invade your personal space and insist on seeing the peculiar thing you are doing in your book. Some are polite, and I hem and haw. Some are pushy and crotchety and they deserve to see what they really look like.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
If I don't post for a while, check the hospital, just to make sure.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

Coffee Mugs

Live caricature in this vein is miles away from carnival & event caricature... For one thing, I rarely show the drawings to the victims subjects; for another, these are not meant to be cutesy stylizations to make one happy. Because carnival caricature has the intended audience as the sitter, the conflict of interest becomes a severe limitation, and the visual truth is compromised. If I actually know the subject fairly well, then the distortions can communicate the inner truth (as I see it) about the person as well as their visual irregularities. Doesn't work if I'm being paid by them... no one wants to pay to be flayed and exposed... and I want my freedom.

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved


© Richard Ewing all rights reserved


© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
I don't know these particular people. Do you?

Coffee Mugs

More Improv Caricature. Coffee culture does wonders for value contrast! This drawing was almost headed for the trash as his hand was reading backwards, and thereby implying I couldn't draw it correctly. I resolved this by disguising the hand altogether... Love his face.
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
How happy one can be with a little caffeine in the system...
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved
Below: if you don't tell, neither will I.
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

Coffee Mugs

Coffee Mugs is a showcase for Improv Caricature. I find myself, oftentimes, at various coffee houses (almost always Peet's), and/or at chronic meetings --so do a lot of other people. Here then is the point to all those meetings and coffee house gatherings: fodder for my blog! These sketchbook drawings are done directly with pen, no pencils or prelims, and they are their own final images... Sometimes they're spot on, sometimes they're spot off. It all depends on how ugly you are...no no no no no, --I didn't mean that, I MEANT how INTERESTING you are. Thank you and enjoy. The names have been withheld to minimize further suffering; or because I didn't know the names at all (and maybe never will).
© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved


© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

Some are dead and some are living

No prelims! This is as "alla prima" as I can get with Acrylic paint... it's often a rush to beat the drying time, however mediums help here --but that's where the rush is...juggling all visual elements at once, and trying not to paint off key... (especially for these two guys; their scorn would be silent but deadly) There were no prelims for this image, I just jumped in with paint and had at it. The duo were drawn or blocked in with paint as a line drawing of sorts, and the form was patched in as I went along. Yes, the copping is intentional. Took about an hour and 20 min.










© Richard Ewing all rights reserved

A Simple Tryst of Fates (Part 5)

I'm back. Where from you may ask? From the abyss of failed hard drives and faltering computers... enough said on that agonizing subject, I am now at least post functional, that is, able to post... I guess I was post (after) functional for a few weeks there, but it's getting much too confusing, and really this isn't the forum anyway. Here are two miserly drawings done back in November before the electronic flood. They are simple refinements on Decima and Nona, but this is better than nothing. Yes? I am keeping them simple but wanted to adjust and specify certain areas.
Okay. Onwards and forward.












© Richard Ewing all rights reserved










© Richard Ewing all rights reserved