Drawn to Weddings

The month of August marks the second wedding of a child of mine. This year!

Daughter Paula was married in February, and now it will be brother Benjamin's turn this month.

My kids were born 11 months apart; they will have been married six months apart.

Between them, what are they planning for children -- to have them 20 minutes apart..?

Welcome to the dog days of Summer issue of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

In a recent poll taken by the Wedding Bee website, the simple question was asked:

Caricatures at a Wedding -- Dumb or Fun?

Forty-six percent said they thought it was fun.  The "nays" garnered only 22 per cent while third and fourth place options came in at 21 and five per cent respectively.

Wedding Wire did a similar poll and virtually every respondent  said "Yay."  Emphatically.

Here are some wedding-related pieces I've done (including the little table display in the photo above):

A Sign-In Board for a couple who renewed their vows...a "Save the Date" magnet...a gift caricature to TV wedding show personality Tiffany Nieves-Cook...a Sign-In Board for a "second-time-around" couple...and my ad running currently in Charlotte Wedding magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're a wedding planner and are not otherwise wed to the "same-old, same-old" for entertainment, you might wish to entertain the idea of caricatures for your bride.

 

See you again the first Tuesday of next month for another museum-worthy display of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

 

All-American

As we celebrate the anniversary this month of our nation's independence, I'm reminded of all the great American caricature artists whose works have enlivened newspapers, magazines, posters and assorted media with whimsical chronicling of our culture and mores.

Welcome to the July issue of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

I've mentioned Jack Davis and Mort Drucker in a previous issue devoted to Mad Magazine. And I've heralded the artistry of the Broadway theater's Al Herschfeld.

Then there's Bruce Stark and Sam Viviano.

Thomas Nast, of course, was the pre-eminent American political cartoonist of the 19th Century, also considered the "Father of the American Cartoon."

One guy whom I've always admired -- uniquely different from the aforementioned artists (who, of course, are unique unto themselves, as well...)  -- is David Levine (1921-2009).

Levine's pen and ink, cross-hatch style is both anachronistic and stylishly modern at the same time.

Here are Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart:

Wikipedia's bio on him notes:

The New York Times described Levine's illustrations as "macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates" that were "heavy in shadows cast by outsize noses on enormous, eccentrically shaped heads, and replete with exaggeratedly bad haircuts, 5 o’clock shadows, ill-conceived mustaches and other grooming foibles ... to make the famous seem peculiar-looking in order to take them down a peg". The paper commented: "His work was not only witty but serious, not only biting but deeply informed, and artful in a painterly sense as well as a literate one."^[ Levine drew his most frequent subject, former president Richard Nixon, 66 times, depicting him as, among other things, the Godfather, Captain Queeg, and a fetus.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While I'm no David Levine...I am, partially, a "David." That's my middle name.

Here are a couple of recent pieces I've produced, both commissioned to acknowledge the achievements of the respective individual. In this case, a high school graduate with honors...and a successful businessman with novelty shops throughout South Carolina's beach communities.

 

 

Enjoy the 4th, and we'll see you again the first Tuesday of next month for another sketchy -- huh? -- installment of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

The King of Broadway

This is Tony Awards month.  With deference to the subject matter in this space, The King of Broadway -- for my money -- ruled not with a scepter but an artist's pen.  

Welcome to the Summer Solstice edition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

 For well over seven decades,  Al Hirschfeld chronicled the stars of Broadway (and movies and politics) with a unique style that no one else even attempted to emulate.

Sparse of line and detail, but richly nuanced in facial likeness, Herschfeld's work was a staple of the popular Arts section of The New York Times every Sunday.

 

 

Just as famously, according to Wikipedia, "Hirschfeld is known for hiding (his daughter) Nina's name in most of the drawings he produced after her birth.

 

"The name would appear in a sleeve, in a hairdo, or somewhere in the background....He engaged in the 'harmless insanity,' as he called it, of hiding her name at least once in each of his drawings. The number of NINAs concealed is shown by an Arabic numeral to the right of his signature. Generally, if no number is to be found, either NINA appears once or the drawing was executed before she was born."
 

Now I'm nowhere near as facile with a pen or pencil as Mr. Herschfeld, but that hasn't kept me from my own attempts at putting some personalities in my sight lines (the first four, commissioned work).

To wit:

Prince Harry, Extreme Makeover's Ty Pennington, McDonald's Ray Kroc, Harry Houdini and Denzel Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your company. Join us again the first Tuesday of next month for another broad brushstroke of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist...

 

 

 

 

Mad for Caricatures

What is it that "was the first to tell us that the toys we were being sold were garbage, our teachers were phonies, our leaders were fools, our religious counselors were hypocrites, and even our parents were lying to us about damn near everything."

According to this quote from Wikipedia...it's Mad Magazine.

 

It goes on to say, "the message sage Mad had in general is, 'The media is lying to you, and we are part of the media.' It was basically... 'Think for yourselves, kids.'...(Publisher) William Gaines offered his own view: when asked to cite Mad's philosophy, his boisterous answer was, 'We must never stop reminding the reader what little value they get for their money!'"

I loved reading Mad as a kid, as did most of my contemporaries. But what engaged me even more than the wit and acerbic, acidic commentary were the illustrations, the cartoons...the caricatures.

 

Guys like Jack Davis, Jack Rickard and Mort Drucker back then...and Drew Friedman, Tom Richmond and Sam Sisco today...are my idols and ever-present inspiration. Beyond capturing the likeness of their subject, they are superb anatomists -- admirably well-schooled at drawing the human face and figure.

I won't, for a nanosecond, presume to share the same space as these notables.

Except here, in my own newsletter...

 

 

 

 

 



 

Whether it's at a corporate event, wedding, birthday party, family reunion...or even a marketing initiative...perhaps you and I can do some mad things with caricature art. :-)

 

 

The Artful National Pastime

Ah, April.

That may mean one thing to tax accountants. But to yours truly, it means the start of -- depending on where you begin its history -- the 110th combined (National and American Leagues) season for our National Pastime.

Welcome to the horsehide-and-stitches edition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist from Caricatures by Joel.

When I was a kid growing up in New York City, many considered that time to be a Golden Era in Baseball. After all, the Yankees had names like Mantle and Maris, Ford and Berra. The Dodgers and Giants eventually moved to the West Coast and the Mets came along to fill the National League gap with their own names (often of both repute...and ill repute): Throneberry and Hunt, later Seaver and Swoboda.

During that time, there were two newspaper cartoonists chronicling the exploits of these teams: New York World Telegram artist Willard Mullin and Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo. For a kid like me -- the son of two artists and spellbound by Baseball -- it was a delight to check the paper each day and see what subject each of them might tackle.

Interestingly, each came up with his own original character that has gone down in Baseball illustrated lore: Gallo's "Basement Bertha," generally representing the lowly Mets...and, more famously, Mullin's "Brooklyn Bum," depicting the Dodgers. 

 

 

Now, ironically, I have no "pure" Baseball caricatures of my own to show; what I've done in the past have been given away as gifts.

But here are caricatures I did of two young men for their Bar Mitzvah Sign-In Board...and, because for these sports multi-taskers there's a bat and a New York Yankees logo in them, they will have to suffice.
 

 

 

 

What sport do you or a client, colleague, friend or family member enjoy...either reminiscing about or actually playing?

I'd love to help you put him or her in their own, personal Hall of Fame.

In the meantime, "Play Ball!" And see you again the first Tuesday of next month for another pitch right down the middle, from Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

 

JOEL KWESKIN

www.caricaturesbyjoel.com
jdkmcm@aol.com
(JDK, your Main Caricature Man)
704.575.8850 mobile
704.846.4835 studio

LinkedIn
Facebook
__________________________________
Wanna see me draw?
http://www.cv-vision.com/ovse/jkweskin/