I recently had a Request to make a more 'sophisticated' Caricature. A shadowed silhouette.

I understood what she was asking for, so I didn't take offense her wording about 'more sophisticated'. If you know about Caricature, you would know that Caricature is just as 'sophisticated' as Portraits. Because a good Caricature Artist is expanding on her Portrait skills. But a good Portrait Artist never needs to learn any Caricature skills.

But let's not get hung up on words. Communication is difficult enough, and I feel glad this this client told me what she wants Before I drew it up.

I never consciously set out to make a Shadowed Sillouette, although I probably did a lot of that in full-scene Traditional Paintings. Based on my abilities, based on how I feel about it, I feel quite confident to make a beautiful picture. A shadowed silhouette. But we can't see the finished piece until I've spendt my time and supplies on it.

So before she orders it, I wanted to help her make an informed decision. I tried to show her some other types of my work. I sent her to a post that showed my confident Traditional-Painting Style. And a post that showed my Pencil-Portrait Style:

http://caricatureexpress.com/2013/04/25/live-party-paintings/

https://caricatureexpress.com/portraits

And I sent her the followed pictures ~ One is a Caricature of a 'more serious' person, one is an Painted sketch, one is a photo of my Studio wall, and one is a close-up of one of those Pastels that it on that wall.

Every Real Artist is different. Every new picture is unexplored territory. Most people like what comes out of me.

It is difficult to paint words (well, actually Glitter Tattoo) on YOURSELF in the middle of the night. Even though I carefully painted it Backwards, it came out backwards. Mirror and Phone Camera. And Phone Camera of Mirror image. And the option on the Camera to turn the camera around...

also difficult to Glitter-Tattoo on your own neck, but at least it doesn't look backwards after my super-concentrated activity.

Nothing wrong with the previous post. Those Caricatures are great! But nothing much to do this afternoon at home. So just fiddling around with that new idea of making more consistent poses/pictures, I drew new Caricatures from some of the previous post's photos. It feels like 'wasting time', but I know it's what keeps me comfortable and fresh when I got to my next Paid Event.

Here's what I came up with. Once again, I can see that sometimes the pictures look smoother with the new style, but other times the pictures look more vibrant with the style I had been using for years. So one way is not better than the other. We just do whatever we do, spend our time however we spend our time.

It feels good to be versatile. Good to have more than one approach. There's no one answer that works for every picture.

We can't even pin down a one-answer-for-all-pictures about line quality. Sometimes heavy lines make the picture look more glamorous. But sometimes heavy lines make the picture look too chunky. By practicing, I get a good handle on that, but you can still never be sure until you do it. Each of my pictures are as unique as each of the people.

Here are some pictures from a very pleasant Party. A comfortable family Party. This was the 2nd time I had been hired to draw for these people.