If you haven’t noticed lately, I have been in an artistic bind. No, it is not a new artistic tool or piece of equipment that I am stuck in (although as a child I did get stuck in an old desk chair, but that is a different story).

No, I have just been not as inspired to draw or paint lately. I think it has to do with the fact that I am one wing short (I cut my left thumb). Granted, I am right-handed, but it is amazing how many things you use with the other hand when drawing. Sharpening a pencil with the old hand sharpener is basically very difficult. Even putting my hand on the paper, that is tough as I should keep my thumb elevated. This blog is typed virtually without my left thumb. Difficult yes, but not impossible, and I like to think that my other unfinished projects are the same, difficult but not impossible.

So it was a surprise to me when I came home from school to see a comic book on my dresser. Now I know where it came from and how it got there, as I bought it and I just finished reading it. Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew was my favorite comic book when I was just about 10 years old. I think I bought only one copy as the comic book was not considered that popular. It basically was about animals in a super-hero role without humans. The main super heroes were Captain Carrot, a “Superman type rabbit”, Pig Iron, a musclebound colossus of pork and metal, Rubber Duck, think Plastic Man with a bill and feathers, FastBack the world’s fastest Turtle, Yankee Poodle, a patriotic dog that shoots stars and stripes out of her paws, and Alley-Kat-Dabra, a feline sorceress. The adventures were littered with puns like names of cities (Gnu Yawk, Mew Orleans, Cape Carnivore in FloriDuck, etc.) and names of real people like Byrd Rentals and Rova Barkitt. Granted this comic book was written in the eighties so the names may not be as hip and modern as now.

Anyway, after reading this compilation of comic books, I got some much needed inspiration. The illustration is wonderful and for the most part the storyline is pretty good except for the fact that some characters magically appear and disappear from the book. There is one character named American Eagle. I think it is a neat idea, kind of like a Captain America crossed with Batman but he just disappears after page 77.

Getting back to inspiration, this book brought me back almost 25 years into my own past, when reading a comic book and drawing the characters was my idea of fun. I would spend days scanning through my comic books, looking for the right pose for the right hero or villain and putting them as close as possible on one sheet of scrap paper. The more characters the better. It was actually kind of like a game to see how many heroes I could put on one sheet of paper. I would then color them with a set of 20 artistic markers. All doing this on the good coffee table in front of the television. Back then, I did not need inspiration to draw or create. I just did it.

It is kind of funny to think that a comic book may have gotten me out of a funk. I have tried different music on my ipod, different lighting, taking breaks, not taking breaks, taking a walk. I have tried almost everything I could to avoid the assignment I should just get done.  In essence, a comic book could be labeled a distraction or nuisance to the creative spirit. In fifth grade, I had a teacher that demanded “no cartoons”. What did she expect from ten year-olds?

Sometimes in the least likely of places, inspiration can hit you anywhere.

I better close up this article before all that inspiration rubs away.

It is Saturday. I have the whole day off. On Friday night I was psyched to be able to finish some long overdue projects. I have to get one caricature done for this client and two more for two others. I am just bogged down with work and I have time to do it….

But why am I writing a blog about it instead of getting it done?

Well, you might have heard of writer’s block and maybe you have heard about artist’s block. But have you ever heard of Caricaturist Block? You haven’t? Well I tell you Mister or Misses or Ms., it is rough! It is like taking that springy thing on the edge of an notebook, and trying to rip it all out in one piece without making a ticker tape parade in the process.

Drawing caricatures is no easy task, but I have had my share of experiences in doing numerous caricatures. I have drawn so many people that I think I could fit a whole community or small town with all the caricatures I have drawn. It is a natural thing for me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not bragging, but my slogan for my business is, “If you have a face, I can draw your caricature.” Granted it doesn’t roll off your tongue as other slick slogans…but it makes a point. I can draw pretty much anyone or anything.

But here is the problem…I have no fire within me to get this one project done. I do not want to give away too many details as I do not want to tick off the customer, but I will say this, for what I am doing on this one piece, it is definitely not worth the time and price. There are just too many details associated with this piece. Normally I would have no problem with it, but the details do not “jibe” with the whole painting. There are more then 2 people in this painting, each person is carrying a different object and there are numerous photographs to use as reference to the picture. It is like having a term paper due on Monday, you have too many research books, and instead of hunkering down and reading those sources of information, you went out with your friends to Pizza Hut. Okay, that sounds silly. No way in heck would you go to Pizza Hut especially with friends…

I guess I am just avoiding the inevitable. I got to get this painting done so I can move on to other projects. I could work on those “other” projects, but they are not in jeopardy to being finished. Somehow I keep flash-backing to 5th grade and trying to make a diorama of a book I was supposed to read and cull details from to make a scene out of a used Payless Shoebox. All I remember is that I used clay to make an island popping out of the ocean with some tall buildings. Needless to say Sr. Esther was not pleased with my work. In fact another student used G.I. Joes to create the Hobbit. That is another story, and I have digressed to much. I don’t even remember the book, which proves that teachers DO make an impression on students!

So I guess I will finish this blog, eat my lunch, get my ipod ready, and just hammer away at this caricature. I might as well get it done as then typing this blog is just avoiding the inevitable.

Unless of course you have some opinions on this? Seriously, I will listen to anything related to this matter. I can stay online for a bit more….maybe there is a new game on the character arcade….hmmm…..

Here is a quick blog about little known facts about artists from any era. I hope you enjoy it and entertained at the same time…

Norman Rockwell never smiled because he had no teeth. They were replaced with a composite of peanut shells and high sucrose gum.

Leonardo da Vinci is from the town of Vinci, Italy. His middle name is not Da.

Andy Warhol, ironically never liked Campbell’s Soup, he preferred Progresso.

Claude Monet and Eduard Manet were the same person.

Pablo Picasso actually had an astigmatism in his eye that caused him to see things like his cubist paintings. He just painted what he saw.

Mary Cassatt really wanted to be a go-go dancer instead of an artist, except for the fact that go-go dancing was not around in the early 1900’s.

Georges Seurat thought he was two persons, hence his first name.

Edward Hopper, ironically could not balance on one foot and move around.

Georgia O’Keeffe was a groupie for the Rolling Stones in her youth after she left art school.

Eduard Manet despised mayonnaise although it was invented by him in a freak accident involving paint gesso, bread and luncheon meats.

Pablo Picasso always wore a white short sleeved shirt with thin, horizontal red lines.

Vincent Van Gogh, was a great pinball player.

Roy Lichtenstein, ironically hated the comics page of the newspaper as it always made his fingers dirty.

The tallest artist was Edward Hopper at 7 feet 7” and shortest was Henri de’ Toulouse Lautrec at a little under 6-8 inches tall in his stocking feet.

Georgia O’Keeffe was born in Wisconsin but had never eaten a brat.

Hokusai has a cool name.

Paul Gauguin gave up his tranquil life in Tahiti to become a professional bowler.

Jacob Lawrence invented the “electric slide” and the “hustle”.

Wait…I think I am wrong on that…..yep, I checked my facts…..it was actually Georgia O’Keeffe who invented those dances. Man, she really did stuff!

Albrecht Durer liked to be called Fat Albrecht due to the fact that he would enter a room in Germany saying, “Ja! Ja! Ja! Was ist going on now, huh?”

John Singer Sargent was neither an accompanist to a band nor in the military.

Georgia O’Keeffe was the inspiration to Ray Charles’ song “Georgia” due to the fact that he really liked her paintings of Southwestern scenes.

Claude Monet actually wrote a rock and roll hit. Ironically it was not “Monet, Monet” but rather “Billy, Don’t be a Hero.”

A little known fact, Georgia O’Keeffe was the heavyweight champion of the world in 1953 and the Playmate of the Year at the same time.

And finally….

Dean Konop made up most of the information you see here to humanize these great artists. If you are offended please note that it was all in fun and that they are all deceased and note that none of these facts are true….except for a few of them…..guess which ones?

Yesterday was the first official snow day of the 2009-2010 school year. It is extra special as I was supposed to teach that day. No school though, so that meant no art class. Kind of a ying to the yang thing, something good but then something bad at the same time. But that is what happens in Wisconsin during the winter months.

I can remember the snow days from the time I was a student. The worst kind of snow days were those half days off. The snow could be removed by the noon hour, so you were still expected to get to school. Or you would have a two hour delay, which means that you still had to get ready for school and your whole day was condensed in shorter time periods. You would have math class during lunch and science class right next to gym. It would have been easier to just cancel the whole day and start over the next day, but apparently that matrix equation and cosine could not wait.

So what do kids do on a snow day? Well, some find time to play in the snow and build forts and for the most part, kids sleep in a bit more. Usually the older students do this and some art teachers too. It is a great feeling to know that basically you are not expected to actually show up and been seen at school. For the most part, with weather-predicting equipment and forecasts so up-to-date, teachers know for sure if the schools would be closed the day before. Then they really can sleep in! For the poor part-time teacher (and I make an emphasis on POOR) that type of teacher has to watch the new crawl of closings on the local tv morning shows or listen to the radio. Either option is not the highlight of the morning ritual for the very poor part-time teacher. (Did I mention that I meant poor, as in not financially abundant and not weak in skills…just needed to make note of that)

Getting back to watching morning tv and listening to the radio, I really can’t stand either. Take for instance yesterday: I hate the morning radio as there is a broadcaster on the air that thinks he is the next coming of Walter Winchell. I hat this guy. He is a blowhard and a bully and leans so much to the right that I am amazed he does not fall off his chair. So I totally do not listen to the radio. The television…no better. They crawl the canceled schools on the bottom of the screen and because my school could go by two names… St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Grade School or Two Rivers Public and Private schools, two names that are waaaaaaayyyyyyy in the back of the alphabet. So you are not only seeking intensely to find those schools listed on the crawl, but you get a little upset when you see all the schools from Appleton and Beaver Dam hog all the time allotted.

To really make matters worse, if the broadcast goes into commercial, the crawl stops and starts over again FROM THE BEGINNING!!!!! Argggggghhhhhh! By this this you can’t get back to sleep. You might as well get ready for school and hope that the principal acts like the death row warden and gives you a last minute reprieve
. This is what happened yesterday, I was watching the ABC morning show. I do not want or care to give the name of the program because it stinks. That is not fair, let me iterate….it really blows. I do not watch it often or at all, but Diane Sawyer is on the screen and is talking to a doctor about the very importance of a vitamins to young women a very important issue as both of them are sitting on stuffed chairs and drinking liquid in a hot cup. I do not give a crap about that at the time. I want to know if the crawl will say “ST. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Grade School——canceled”. They are almost ready to get to the S’s of the list of schools that are canceled and the whole screen pops up to show this doctor’s name. What the heck?!!!! ARRRRGGGHGHHHHHHHH!!!!

To make matters worse they keep his name on the screen for the rest of the interview and all the names on the crawl are blocked because of it. Diane and the young doctor are having such a good time meanwhile I am pulling clumps of hair out of my head as this is the tenth time I have missed my school’s name. There is no time for me to get a few more z’s. I have to be at school and get supplies ready for the few kids that will show up. I want to curse Diane the Cougar and her boy-toy doctor.

Quickly the email rings and I am notified that school is canceled. What a relief. I put down my notepad of which I was writing a letter to the ABC affiliate, and went back to sleep…..only to be awakened by the call to get out of bed and start shoveling.

I have drawn my fair share of people and made them look better then what they actually look like. The reason? Long story short, the customer is the main person who is paying you. If you want to be paid, draw a presentable caricature.

There have been instances that I have had to just bite my tongue and not “report” the actually “truth”. I have had people say to me to knock a few pounds off or make them younger or with more hair. In most cases that is just a way to bring a little levity to the situation. But in all honesty, that is what I am trying to do anyway.

My first caricature experience, I had to draw for a Wedding Party in Green Bay. I was called up by “my manager”. I did not know I had a manager. Apparently some guy heard about me and wanted to run an entertaining agency and needed caricaturists. Plus he had a gig for me and it paid $120.So I said sure. I did not know at the time that I had to owe this guy 35% of my cut. That sucked. Especially after I got to the gig.

I did not know exactly how to work it so I had a make-shift easel and a few matte boards and some drawing utensils such as sharpie markers, pencils, erasers and colored markers too. I was getting paid as a total sum so anyone who wanted a caricature, just had to step right up. I was scheduled to draw for 2 hours and I stayed 2 hours longer. First lesson: Only stay as long as you are scheduled. If you bend this rule a bit, you will still be drawing hours after you are supposed to be home. In this first time out drawing as a “professional” caricaturist, I so wanted to please everyone that was there.

Getting back to drawing at this event. There happened to be a mother of 3 children. The oldest happened to have a smile with a gap. After drawing babies and children (or so it seemed) I was thrilled to try to break the monotony of the perfect smiles. Before I even picked up the pencil, this young girl said something to the effect, “Don’t put the gap in my teeth!”

What was I supposed to do? This little detail made the whole portrait look like the subject. I had the partially-closed eyes, the long black hair, the freckles (which she said not to add, after I drew them). Without the gap this picture would not look like her at all. What to do?

In a quick instant, I decided not to draw in the teeth. It basically looked like a white strip in her mouth. A perfect white strip. From that decision, I have decided not to draw in the teeth. For the most part, people do not smile so much that you need to show all the teeth. This is what I figured out in my head and this is why to this day, I do not draw lines where the teeth are. When you add lines, you create a space and it just does not jibe with what I do.

Getting back to the first gig, the mother of this girl was so pleased with the caricature that she wanted one with her daughter. Another thing I have learned, trying to draw the same person twice in a row is kind of difficult and somehow does not work out for me. I can do it, but do not expect a carbon copy of the same caricature in different sizes. I am not a xerox machine. I do not make perfect copies. It is the artist in me that likes to change things up, otherwise I would be a professional counterfeiter, and that’s not right. This seemed to baffle the mom and she basically was adament about drawing her with her daughter. So I did.

It turned out alright. Granted I decided to put away my markers and just focus on the black and white images. That way it gave me more time and more people to draw, the main purpose of why I am getting paid. I was sent there not to be a personal caricaturist to a few, but to a many people.

After drawing Gappy and Mom, I thought I was through with the two. No, not quite. Mom came up and wanted to be drawn by herself with a martini. Okay, I can do that. I drew this woman with clearer eyes and not so jacked-up. Then she wanted her son drawn with her. She was so pleased with that caricature, that she wanted to have another one drawn of her and her TWIN sister. TWIN SISTER! This kind of irked me. To monopolize me to draw this woman’s family when many others want to get drawn is downright rude and out of line. Now if you paid for it, yes that would be acceptable. But this was technically a free event as I was paid for the full time ahead.

So I started on the twins. They both looked the same. They wanted to draw themselves sipping martinis with their arms crossed. I just wanted to draw them and get it over with. After gritting my teeth and finishing it up, the two were so baked, that they were hugging each other and having a grand old time. I gave them the envelope, which I supplied and thanked them. Before they took it, they said the dreaded words any caricaturist hates to hear (or at least me)....“Now who will keep it?”

Don’t tell me I have to make another copy of these two! It is the same freakin’ person in the last 4 pictures!

Now to be honest, I should have done some things to avoid this mess. One, have a limit on the free caricatures. One per person. If they are paying for it, fine, but remind them that the artist (you) has limited time to draw and that he/she is scheduled to draw as many DIFFERENT people as possible, otherwise the artist will not get paid. Basically if you are not paying for it, you only get one.

Now technically, the lady that I had to draw 4 times, was not that difficult to draw but rather to handle. Similar to any customer, try to talk to them in a calm manner and explain the process to them. I think if I would have said this earlier, I would not be in the jam I was in.

By the way, the lady wanted another caricature of herself, her twin sister, her daughter, Gappy, her son and her husband and the other twin’s husband and two kids. Not all together but separate. She told me that she was from Indiana and had never had the experience of being drawn. Plus she wanted all the people that she was with to have a copy of the caricature. At that time of the conversation, I looked up and saw that I was 10 minutes over my deadline and I was ready to go home. I also decided that from now on, I will make the decision of when and where I will draw caricatures. Not some guy that called up and was one caricaturist short in his agency.