MY PENCIL NEVER LIES: FROM PORTRAITURE TO CARICATURE

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

For these soon-to-be summer days of street busking, I have decided to draw caricatures rather than draw my traditional “my-pencil-never-lies” portraits. Typically, my pencil-never-lies portraits take me 15 to 20 minutes to draw, whereas my caricatures just three to five minutes. This translates to four pencil portraits per hour versus ten caricatures per hour, at ten dollars a pop. (Hmm. $40 per hour compared to $100 per hour.) CHA-CHING!

And what are the differences between my pencil portraits and my caricatures? In a line, caricatures are my pencil portraits jacked on steroids. Note, that most caricaturists exaggerate the most noticeable facial features when drawing their subjects, whereas I tend to draw more realistic than an exaggerated cartoony fashion. My notion of caricature is to make my clients smile, not make them cry. Even though people with naturally exaggerated features are much easier to draw than those having the look of the boy or girl next door, so far, I have not exaggerated anyone’s nose or chin or whatever. So far …

For drawing caricatures I use a marker, and for drawing portraits I use a pencil. In this short period of transition from one to the another, I have discovered that drawing with a marker leaves little or no room for error. A marker stroke is permanent; an errant pencil stroke can easily be erased. Even so, drawing with markers is much quicker and much cleaner than drawing with pencils. 

Here is an example of my my typical pencil-never-lies portrait drawing.

Now this next picture is my very first attempt at drawing a caricature live:

MY CO-WORKER, BRIAN

Here is another attempt at a live caricature:

MY FRIEND, LORRAINE

And yet another attempt:

TOO MUCH LIPSTICK MAYBE?!

Walking through Prince’s Island Park in Calgary, Alberta, by happenchance I bumped into a professional caricaturist.

ROB MILTON - CARICATURIST

And Rob Milton drew me:

And then I drew Rob Milton:

“There is a resemblance,” he stated. YIKES! (I thought I did a great job!)

From long ago I have learned to realize that people do not know what they look like. And after drawing literally hundreds of my-pencil-never-lies portraits, the longer it takes me to draw people, the more they expect it to look like a photograph.

Drawing clients live on the street can be, both literally and metaphorically, a hair-raising experience. Years ago, at the Farmers’ Market in my home city, a woman screamed at me that I did not capture the essence of her daughter in my pencil portrait. Another time in Marrakech, a ten-year old threw quite the tantrum when he looked at his likeness that I had drawn. (His dad was totally on my side and brought three more of his children over for me to draw!)

In moments of bluster, I love referring to myself as a “Planetary Busker.” I say this only because I have drawn pencil-portraits of people on the streets in Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Morocco. I really am a planetary busker! (More bluster.)

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention, that my busking is a mercenary enterprise. I sling both my guitar and my pencil on the street for the money. And this is why I have decided that being a caricaturist is the way to go, and like I alluded to earlier in this essay, TIME IS MONEY!

Here are a few caricatures I drew a few years ago, back in 2020 when I was considering adverting to caricatures, but never did. These were drawn from pictures (obviously), which I consider to be rather meh when compared to the never-ending kinetic excitement when drawing live on the streets.

Yep. Caricatures shall be my defining zeitgeist from this day forward! Here is hoping the quality of my caricature drawing improves before my next blog post. And I do know the only way to become a successful and sought after caricaturist is to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!

And here is my last practice caricature for today:

 THREE MINUTES!

 

DOGGONE IT!

It was windy and cool, not really the perfect day for busking, but still a perfect day in the park for trees to bud, the geese to gather, and people to walk their dogs. Just ten minutes into my thrumming and harping inside the Queen Elizabeth II Gardens, in the riparian zone close to where Her Majesty is always riding to nowhere while seated high upon her horse, a rather ragged looking gentleman, very tall and wearing very loud red and yellow blowing-in-the-wind sailing clothes, stopped walking his dog to have a chat with me.

Fittingly and amusingly, he introduced himself as “Barber.” My inner self chuckled as his foot-long unkempt and scruffy beard was quite the distraction to anything he was attempting to communicate to me. He was mumbling something about the election (we had just gone to the polls the day before, the politer still on front lawns and park billboards), but I was not listening. The distraction of his unsightly and knotty beard was quickly eclipsed by his dog defecating on my buskspot. With nary a look nor a word regarding this action of his pooch, Barber simply bid goodbye and walked away leaving the poop at my feet. 

Rather roiled, I wasn’t sure what to do. Just leave it and change buskspots? Confront Barber?  Bag it and deposit into the nearest trash can? With my iPhone, take a picture of Barber and his Fido and show it to the nearest park sheriff? Or bag it, and follow Barber to his residence and deposit it there?

For me to just leave it and move on would have been the simplest action, whereas confronting Barber was a bit more complicated. Here is what I know about confronting someone over anything. Anyone you decide to confront is always a wild card. Confronting Barber could predictively lead to a shouting match or even fisticuffs. 

But for me to bag it and deposit it into a park garbage can, yuk. Not my dog’s poop – I do not own a dog for this very reason. I’ve no quarrel with people and their pets, but having a pet is just not for me. Too much maintenance for my already imaginary busy schedule. Besides, I do not need a dog for an excuse to go for a walk in the park. This I do daily, without a dog, and with or without my guitar.

For me to bag it and follow Barber to his place and dump it there, though sinister in nature, would certainly be the most delicious poetic justice. Hmmm. But I would have to take time out of my busy busking schedule and in a most aggressive way, take a chance of confronting the wildcard.

After the fact, I googled the appropriate by law. According to my city Good Neighbor Guide:

“Picking up after your dog, be this on private property or public property, is part of responsible pet ownership. On public property, immediately dispose of your dog’s waste. Dog poop poses environmental risks health hazards, carrying diseases and parasites harmful to humans and other animals. Noncompliance of this can result in fines ranging from $100 to $300.”

Hmmm. Reading all this is good to know but to point out and preach about this to a dog walker who is guilty of not picking up after their pooch is a risky business, and such confrontation could potentially lead to a disastrous outcome.

I googled the breed of Barber’s Rover. It was a Newfoundland, and this Newfoundland left quite a load of poop.

Call me a coward – I left it and moved on. 

Doggone it! 

Doggy do does take the fun out of busking!