County Fair Caricatures
Description:
During the summers of 2005 and 2006, I attended local County Fairs to make and sell caricatures. They were always in demand and I tested various prices to see how this would pay. While the economics aren't really there as other than a hobby (or public service), it gave me substantial practice at capturing cartoon expressions of people within minutes. All with a technique which would have to be fast and forgiving / repairable.
In the times between work, it always helped to have my hands busy - as this would invite people to come and sit down for a portrait (much better than a bored person sitting around looking (or not-looking) at people who came by. So I started practicing the much harder of capturing a likeness from passer-by's. Now, as I didn't have to please them, they could be as extreme as I wanted. But practice was the key. As well, I could also draw completely imaginary characters, some of which show up in these images.
And while this hasn't paid its way for a year-round vocation, it is still something I hope to get back to in the near future, as a way to stay in touch with people and get some vignettes of their life stories for other inspirational works.
Format:
These were drawn and inked with a combination of black markers in various sizes, preceded by a blue-line pencil. Grays were created with a black lumber crayon, while colors went over this by wax crayon-pencils. All were reproduced at letter-size by scanning. These were assembled in a PDF in order to be published online for your use. Some of the yellowed background color was due to the aging caused by display in the weather, but the scanner used also had its defects (needless to say, were I to publish this commercially, it would need to be rescanned.) For now, please enjoy.
Methods:
Black markers, wax crayons.
Sample:
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