Leslie Neilson, serious actor or comic genius? Well, both actually!

With the sad news of Leslie Nielson's death, I thought I should pay tribute to a man who has brought laughter to millions. Someone who had a long established career of serious acting...

Which he threw down the toilet to appear in a comedy film, Airplane.

But what an icon he became. So many moments of that film and his other spoofs are now classics. Many more famous, or should I say infamous, than the originals they parodied!   

No?

Tell me, do you actually remember anything from the Airport films? And that means without doing a Google search! I'll wait...

Exactly! I rest my case!

The seventies were a period where practically every film was a Disaster movie. Hollywood seemed to think that everybody wanted to see the same movie (What's changed there?!?). Chruning them out with only the slightest variations in cosmetic details. Such as setting (airport, cruise ship, tower block... substitute you idea here).

But basically they all had the same plot and characters.

The authority figure who knows he's heading for the scrap heap, 

The hero who will be battling some major trauma from his past. Which you just know he must overcome, if he's to become the hero again!  Sullen and antisocial with a distinct death wish.

The hero's love interest who will begin by despising him but eventually realise he is "The ONE". There will be some point when all but the bare minimum of her clothes fall/are torn off.
And....Cue Cupid Stunts (sorry for poor quality of video but Kenny illustrates the point so well!)


The couple who are heading for divorce but really love each other. The crisis will help them to realise that they "Have each other" (pass me the sick bucket)


Hero's best friend who may or may not make it to the end of the film!

The comic light relief!
  
The cute child/animal that will be in peril but saved from certain death.

And other various characters created with all the dimensions of cardboard!

Following the release of Airplane, film makers no longer take that particular genre of film seriously! I suspect the viewing public had come to that conclusion years before!



Now,  what other Cliche characters are there? If you can think of any, please describe them in the comments section. Try to use no more than 2 lines! They are "cardboard" characters after all!

RIP Leslie, you'll be missed!

Emma Watson's Promoting the Penultimate Potter

So, the penultimate Harry Potter film hits the screens, with the Preview in London last weekend. To carry on the spirit, I thought Emma Watson would be fitting. And what else could she be but a witch! With her beloved books.
I wonder if she will ever manage to shake off the Hermione association?

And look how she's grown. Weren't they just adorable, so cute! But like all children, they become adults.
It's a strange thing watching child stars grow up. There is that sense of the child next door. You know them by sight, but not necessarily very well.

Now should I do Rupert Grint next week? Or wait until the final film in the Summer?
What do you think?

Live caricaturing – survival techniques for the nervous

Ever had a time when you were so nervous your hands shook? Imagine then having to draw…and not only draw but do it well! That is how I usually feel when doing a live event.

For my first event, I was producing zigzags for straight lines. Even now, I still need to psych myself up before drawing live caricatures.

Here’s how I prepare myself, beforehand.

1. Practice drawing caricatures -using photographs for reference. I concentrate on one feature repetitively e.g. eyes, noses or mouths
2. Gather together equipment – pads of paper, pencils, rubber, drawing board etc
3. Practice quick drawings using images from magazines.  I use these to experiment.Like with Marilyn here. I thought I’d play with the lips, not sure it really works. The “doe caught in headlights” look is accurate and I’m loving the body! 
4. Practice some more. ( Do you see a theme emerging here?)
5. Practice drawing real people by press ganging family members.  It’s usually accompanied by phrases such as “Go away, I don’t want to be drawn!” “ Pleeeeeese leave me alone!”… @@@@@@@@ (This stage doesn’t tend to go too well as my family are wise to all my strategies!!- NB Must devise some more cunning plans!)
6. Practice some more. Here I might concentrate on body positions. It’s a good idea to have a stock of poses that you can draw comfortably. You know, like a ballerina, footballer, artist, musician,… I could go on!
7. Go into blind panic that I’m never going to be ready and it will all turn out to be a disaster!
8. Practice yet again…
9. Concentrate on practicing 5 minute sketching with marker pens!
10. Check my equipment and pack up the car.
11. Pray!!! Maybe I should do that earlier in future?

On the day I aim to

1. Arrive early and get set up.
2. Think positive. i.e. keep telling yourself you’ll do well not I’m going to get the noses wrong!
3. Try to make the sitter at ease when I’m actually doing a caricature. It usually that helps steady my nerves! Usually I’m fine once I’ve started drawing.

So, what do I do after the event?

1. Pack everything away
2. Collapse on the sofa with a bottle of wine vowing NEVER EVER to do THAT again!

Do you have any suggestions for remaining calm before a live event?

Caricaturing Sarah Jessica Parker’s fine! But what is the appeal of Sex in the City?

I’ve really never been able to get into the Sex in the City programmes. 
I love the concept. Independent woman in high earning careers. I believe that women can achieve the same levels of intellectual excellence as men! But I’m not sure this programme demonstrates it…
The sexual freedom, whilst I might not agree with it, seems to be an attempt at levelling the playing field. Again, nothing wrong with that. So what’s my problem?
Firstly, I detect the idea that to be complete a woman must find “Mr Right” which pervades the entire show. Is that seriously the primary goal of the career minded woman?  I don’t think so!
Is “Mr Right” going to whisk one of them away to be a “kept” woman? The mindless “paradise” of woman, where the only decisions she has to worry about are the colour of the decor and her dress…
Or
Is he going to be an equal partner who supports her desire to develop a career? If that’s the case – no problemo! Men can have both, so why not women?
The other issue I have with Sex in the City is the obsession with fashion. I could cope with an interest but they’re supposed to be intelligent women?  Where are the other interests? Really, are independent women so two dimensional?
I am, of course, speculating since I’ve never been able to sit through more than half a show. If they have other interests, I haven’t seen them. I can’t get past the random sexual encounters and obsession with fashion. Jimmy who?
Reminds me of another show about an “Independent woman” Ally McBeal. Maybe I’ll do her next week although Ally McBeal is a bit old hat now.
So, back to Sex in the City – lack of interest hasn’t stopped me being aware of the show and some of the characters. So, with the launch of SITC 2 I thought I’d do Sarah Jessica Parker or Carrie as I believe she is in the show.

She was a frustrating caricature to do. I’ve attempted Sarah Jessica Parker before but it’s easy to make her look masculine. The body didn’t work in a standing pose, I kept losing her length in favour of girth. Having said that, the finished caricature has come out well. I may tweak the hair a little more though!
So, should I do Ally next week?

Bald female and beautiful? Sinead O'Connor, Britney Spears or Natalie Portman!

Baldness is not a state associated with beautiful women.
I start with Sinead O’Connor here. The trouble with a name like Sinead –or any name beginning with S I imagine- is, if you shave your head, you’re going to get called “Skinhead” O’Connor, Like it or not. She certainly was tagged that in our household. Sorry Sinead!

I’ve been trying to find a clip where Ross’s girlfriend in friends shaves her head – so, if anyone can find it can you send me the link, please.
Ok, so Sinead was an obvious one, so I got to thinking who else has been bald and I remembered Britney Spears deforestation a few years back. So there was no doubt there. I thought about the school uniform theme but it felt a bit creepy. So went for the catsuit/body-stocking effect. Only slightly less creepy perhaps?!

I really struggled to find number three. Bald female celebrities, which weren’t just photoshop efforts, seem to be defeating the object. I eventually found Natalie Portman here.

Country singers and big hair – dream caricatures!

What is it about American Country music that encourages it’s female stars to have such big hair.

I confess to being more than a little jealous of Crystal Gale’s hair. Just look at it!

As a child I always wanted hair I could sit on. It never grew quite long enough, stopping in the small of my back. My best friend’s was a few inches longer but still never reached the target length. It makes you wonder whether some kind of rack device was used… that or some hair extensions – pah! 

I had a request to do Crystal here and wondered who else in Country music could I do. Dolly Parton, another fan of the oversized barnet!

 

 

 

So, I present 2 established figures even I can recognise - not being a Country and Western Fan.

Crystal…

And Dolly!

So, could this be a feature of this genre of singers. Further digging produced a new contender for the “Big Hair” crown…

who I’ve never heard of! Sorry any Carrie Underwood fans, but I didn’t know her name until I downloaded the photo on Sunday. To make up for my ignorance, here she is!

I suspect some artificial assistance is used by a lot of these stars, they look far too good for their age -with the exception of Carrie who looks about right.

Dolly Parton* for instance, freely admits she’s had work done. Whilst not a fan of cosmetic surgery. I prefer people who fess up compared to those who obviously have work done and deny it.

I’ve learnt four unconnected things as well.

1. My pens need topping up/replacing

2. I need to clean the scanner bed

3. Doing eyes is making me cross-eyed.

4. I’m not that keen on doing hair! (Shocking when most people I talk to say drawing hair is their favourite bit.)

With the forth point in mind, maybe I should try some bald people for next week.

Sinead O’Connor immediately comes to mind… any other suggestions? Please add them to the comments.

*Sorry for Wiki link here. I decided against Dolly’s page - it was too annoying and slow and had a flash page!!!!

Caricaturing the Fantastic 4 - I mean 3! Ioan Grudffud, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis

After my Jessica Alba picture last week, this one is for the ladies. Why should men have all the eye candy?

So, to business, here is Michael Chiklis who plays “Thing”- well, from the neck down at least.

Next to him is Chris Evans who plays the “Human Torch” – not to be confused with this Chris Evans - the radio 2 DJ for all you Brits out there.

Before you ask. I decided to keep the heads “normal” for no particular reason. I just felt like it, OK? You got a problem with that?…

And finally the lovely Ioan Gruffud as Mr Fantastic!

Now there’s lovely! in Welsh accent

The “rubber man” as I prefer to call him. But then I’m not a Marvel comics aficionado! Not his best role, that will forever be “Hornblower” in my eyes. But then, he could read aloud a telephone directory and I’d be happy! There are few actors who share that honour.

So there we have my charictures  no carictures  no caricatures for the week. I’m really struggling with the spelling of caricatures today!!! My brains melting with all this fantastic 4 malarkey.

Next week - I’ve had a request Crystal Gale and I think I might do Dolly Parton as well. Go for a big hair or Country and Western theme – any suggestions?

See you next Tuesday!

4kids on a boat

I was having a really good day today until Siobhan told me she didn't like the caricature of her and friends. She wanted a portrait!!!!! "A prophet in his home town..." comes to mind. That more or less killed my enthusiasm for this one, but I finished it. It still needs some finishing touches but it's midnight and I think it might be better served with fresh eyes in the morning.

Yesterday my "inktense" pencils arrived and the supplier had included a set of faber artist's pens because the tin was slightly scratched. Royal mail had managed to chew the parcel so the tin was dented - fortunately all pencils were fine. As I purchased the item through ebay, I didn't want to leave negative feedback as it had been packed very well. I sent him an email just to let him know what had happened, just out of courtesy, not expecting anything. Well, he's now sending me another set of pens and a sketch book! What service!

This morning I finished applying the labels to the blog. After yesterday's efforts I was pleased to see a 47% increase in traffic yesterday. Hmm methinks labels might have had something to do with it. Talking of labels I must apologise if they seem a little unwieldy, I need to figure out how to display them more usefully. I also want to import a blog template but haven't figured out where to put it.

And as Zebadee would say "Time for bed!"

Andrew and Kylie Minogue

Time to post in earnest. After a week away, another finishing off my commission and another on the competition entry, I'm finally back to my regular caricatures. It's my husband's birthday today so I did this little number for him. He likes canals!

Today I worked on the picture of Kylie, I'm not 100% happy with it so I may have to have another go. The mouth isn't to my liking. I may tweak this one first, iron out the wrinkles. I like the general layout and the tiny body though.

Owen Wilson

Finally got a new cartridge for the printer so I have some new people to draw!!! Here's Owen Wilson. I had more than a few disasters on this one but I've managed to redeem most of them. That stupid grey pen is still leaking. Been a bit busy with abstracts again and planning my comp entry - I need to start painting soon! I also went to a scrapbook crop yesterday, where does the time go!!

Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine

I had a major disaster today, inking in the picture I posted last nigh, I'd refilled my grey pen and it leaked all down Susannah's face. Well, I think it is Susannah -They're a bit like Ant 'n' Dec really, I can never remember which one is which as they're always together. Not that they're similar in appearance. Anyway, I ended up redrawing the picture- some tracing might have been involved, I was feeling VERY depressed at the time. Trinny's left eyebrow was a bit darker than planned but I decided to keep it in, it evokes the sort of character which comes across in their TV appearances.

The Marilyns

I started these pictures over a week ago and finished them today. The one below is marker pens and the right is watercolour and ink. I thought it might be worth finishing the two as a comparison. I'm not sure which I prefer. The marker pen is a better likeness but the watercolour has the subtler colouring. The masking didn't work as well on the marker pen image, the grid totally disappeared!

The rest of the day's practice was spent on an abstract picture and a watercolour of the local school.

I had a lovely email last week about the cricket caricatures with lots of very positive feedback, mentions possible future orders and recommending me to her friends. So all in all very good news!

Andie McDowell

Having neglected my blog entries last week, I thought I'd better get my act together and start posting more regularly. So here is Andie McDowell. It's the first one I've done in marker on this particular sketch paper and I don't think I'll be using it with markers again. There is an annoying tendency for the ink to bleed. Yesterday was quite good from a drawing/painting perspective. Managed to do a couple of watercolour sketches in the field. The first one is one I intend to return to, the second was a more studied sketch. I was going to get out and about for a walk but I found a good position in the middle of the road, so decided the car might be safer, with the added bonus I could listen to the radio. I'm not particularly pleased with either sketch, they both needed more time, so I will probably try again or maybe revisit the scenes? I haven't quite cracked the logistics of carting paints around yet but I'm refining my kit to improve that aspect.

Jennifer Anniston

I finished the commission yesterday. Two A3 watercolours of retiring members of a cricket club. I'll be able to post them tomorrow, as they're being presented at a cricket dinner tonight, possibly even as I write. I finished them on Thursday and they were handed over yesterday, client was happy and I got paid, so I was.

I spent most of yesterday trying to sort out how to put images in a database of my artwork, still no success so feeling VERY frustrated. If anyone reading this can offer any advise, it would be appreciated? I'm using Open Office but I think I need to upgrade as I could write the tables and forms but not edit them once they were saved, and I still can't get the individual pictures into the files, just the same one on ALL of them.

Today has been much better, I returned to the celebrity marker pen caricatures. Here is Jennifer Anniston in a stretch limo.

Freddie Mercury

Well, as promised, here is the late great Freddie Mercury. I've gone for an earlier image, I always preferred him with long hair. I still can't make my mind up about the spotlights. Apart from not being round, a matter which will probably result in some tweaking later, and I know how! I'm still not sure whether the sun ray effect is working. I think I'm going to have to sleep on it and review the situation in the morning.

I'm probably not going to be posting much over the next couple of days as I've got a commission! I'm very excited about it, but details will have to wait until I can publish them without ruining the surprise. There is always the possibility, however slim, that one of the potential recipients will see the image before they receive it, and that's not right!

Jim Carrey

Well this is Jim Carrey. Not my best likeness by a long chalk but quite a pleasing result nonetheless. It has not been a productive few days from the portrait/caricature front. The oil paintings are going quite well, but they're a still life and landscape. I've been playing with ripple effects in oil, as you can see below.

I think I prefer the bottom one. I was intending to work them more but something about the simple rendering of the shapes was quite appealing. These were done about 2 weeks ago but I've only just felt happy about putting them on the scanner bed, oil takes soooooooooo long to dry! Definitely a watery them going on today. I can't say that I consciously planned things that way! Just a process of evolution I suppose.

Heath Ledger - round 2

Finally got around to another attempt at Heath Ledger. So many things were bugging me about the shading on the last one. Decided to go for the "Night's tale" image, it suits him so well.

Spent some time today sorting out online gallery submissions. I've not put many pictures on them yet but I've signed up with Yessy.com and the Saatchi gallery's "Your gallery" I need to sort out links and get some more work scanned to submit. For "Your gallery" I will need to be more selective as there is a limit on how man y pictures I can submit, fortunately Yessy has unlimited submissions.

David Duchovny

Following my picture of Gillian Anderson I thought it only right to do David Duchovny, in my opinion, the more attractive of the 2. He was the main reason I used to watch "The X files", lost interest when he left. It is an A3 picture which had to be scanned hence the line across the middle. My son's comment was, "Hey Mum, I like the picture but you've done the wrong one!" He was referring to "Evolution" of course, although that was not my thought when I did it. I started off thinking of him in a bubble, then that developed to a space suit. I liked the idea of alien insects being able to treat glass as a liquid bubble, and then it evolved further. I wanted him to float, following the space idea and the spiders web got worked in as a result. I tend to plan these things on the page although I usually have an idea of what I plan to do.

No picture for yesterday, I did a pencil sketch of Amy Winehouse but it just hasn't worked how I want it. I'll have another go and post it when I'm happy.

Gillian Anderson

Following the release of the X files movie, she seems to be in the news recently. I'm not 100% happy with the likeness, there's something that's bugging me about it. Not sure what. I expect I'll spot it tomorrow or when I've posted it. It's always the way.

Queen Elizabeth

Ever since reading "The Queen and I" by Sue Townsend I've been attracted to the idea of the Queen doing everyday jobs. You can't get more mundane than washing up, and, as she always wears gloves, why not a pair of "marigolds"?