The other night I drew caricatures at a bridal shower for one of my former animation students, Ellie Ventura, who is getting married this coming September. I must confess, bridal showers are my favourite type of event to work, as I get to caricature lots of cute girls! Some people believe that it's harder to caricature females, but I think it's still possible to exaggerate and stylize the features while maintaining their attractiveness. Anyway, here is a sampling of the ones I drew that evening. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sketch Ellie herself, though at least she has the one I did from when she was in my class about 5 or 6 years ago. All the best to Ellie and her beau on their upcoming wedding day!
Long before the Turner Classic Movies cable channel came along, lucky movie buffs here in Ontario had Saturday Night at the Movies to look forward to each week. Starting in the mid-1970s, it was on this TVOntario show that many of my age were first introduced to all sorts of film classics from the glorious past. And the man who created the show and hosted it for about 25 years running was Elwy Yost, a round faced, enthusiastic, and very genial film connoisseur. Sadly, I learned yesterday that Elwy Yost has just passed away at the age of 86.
Similar to the appeal of Walt Disney coming into our living rooms every week on The Wonderful World of Disney in the 50s and 60s, a decade later Elwy Yost was also like a favourite uncle arriving every Saturday night to sit down and watch with and discuss some of the best movies that Hollywood's Golden Age had to offer. Every week there would be a couple of films screened on a related topic, or perhaps from the same director or starring the same actor. In between the movies there would be pre-filmed interview portion, sometimes with a well-known star, but more often with a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, makeup artist, or other creative person who had long laboured behind the scenes. Elwy would usually film his interviews with them at their homes and, though the interview might start out a bit stiffly, the subjects would always warm up to Elwy as it progressed, when it became quickly evident that Elwy was really interested in their specific contribution to a film classic. I'm certain that many of the interviewees were delighted to be asked questions about their achievements that nobody had ever been interested enough to ask them before. While Elwy did have a tendency to gush in his "Gee Whiz!" manner, his enthusiasm for the films he covered was quite endearing to his loyal viewers, who probably found him very easy to relate to. Elwy was not a film critic so much, but rather, the ultimate film fan. I suspect Elwy Yost never met a movie he didn't like!
Fortunately, TVOntario has just recently been making a number of Elwy's interviews available to watch on their online TVO Archive. I strongly recommend checking out some of these. Animation buffs will probably enjoy Elwy's interviews with Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. Here is a clip from YouTube that shows Elwy Yost in his hosting duties on Saturday Night at The Movies. Yep, we'll miss you, Elwy...
Here's my caricature of Liam Neeson, the subject of the week at Caricaturama Showdown. As I've mentioned often on here, I do my caricatures by sketching from video reference rather than from photos, as I find I get a better feel for the design of the face and the personality of the subject. For this caricature, I started by watching Liam in the 1994 film, Nell, which starred Jodie Foster (who was also co-producer) in the title role of a young woman who has been raised in a log cabin in the backwoods of North Carolina, completely isolated from the outside world. Her mother was a stroke victim, paralyzed on one side of her face, so Nell grows up never hearing properly enunciated speech. When the elderly mother dies, Nell is left speaking what appears to be an unknown language when she is discovered by the sheriff and a concerned doctor played by Neeson.
It's a truly beautiful and touching film, even moreso in retrospect, as it was during the filming of Nell that Liam Neeson met and fell in love with his co-star, actress Natasha Richardson, who plays a psychiatrist in the film. They married soon thereafter and had a wonderful, stable, loving marriage until Natasha was tragically killed in a skiing accident in 2009. I acknowledged the tragedy at the time with this tribute, as I believe there were many people who felt so saddened for Liam in his great loss. It's hard to watch the film today and not shed some tears when you can tell how they were falling in love during its production. And in her performance as Nell, Jodie Foster is truly luminous, and shows what a gifted actress she has become in her years before the camera. A lovely and poignant film that I highly recommend if you have not yet seen it.
The subject this week on Caricaturama was Bill Cosby, and the fellow who chose him knew that this challenge would end on Cosby's birthday. I hadn't been participating in this weekly challenge for awhile now, but I felt compelled to draw ol' Bill, as I consider him the gold standard of stand-up comedians. I wanted to portray him back in his prime of the 1970's/early 80's when he appeared regularly on The Tonight Show while Johnny was still at the helm. Those were the days! In fact I drew this from an appearance in 1983 that Cosby made on The Tonight Show that can be found on this new multi-disc DVD set that came out earlier this year.
Here's a terrific Bill Cosby routine I remember fondly, courtesy of YouTube:
PS: Sorry I haven't updated the blog in awhile. I haven't felt very motivated lately, I'm afraid.
Alan Rickman was this week's challenge on Caricaturama Showdown. There were a lot of entries portraying him as Prof. Snape from the Harry Potter films, so I wanted to show a very different side of him for variety. I remembered that he was in the Richard Curtis film, Love Actually, a delightful romantic comedy with a great ensemble cast. So here is my caricature of Alan Rickman from that role as a compassionate office boss who plays cupid for two of his employees, while also trying to avoid falling into the trap of an extramarital affair with his comely young secretary. Check out this great scene from the film where he tries to discreetly purchase a Christmas gift for the girl while his wife is off elsewhere in the department store, and he runs into trouble from an overzealous jewelry counter clerk played to perfection by Rowan Atkinson.
Here are more of the caricatures I drew at last week's Open House:
This first one features one of the new grads from Sheridan's Music Theatre program, Brittany Robinson, pictured here with her boyfriend Trevor. Earlier this year, Brittany had landed the plum role of Janet Van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, which will likely remain my favourite Sheridan production for quite some time. She is a lovely and talented young lady to whom I wish much success in her career!
Here are several of the Sheridan Animation students who drew along with me at this year's event. This is Leisha-Marie Riddel, who graduated from the program last year.
3rd Year student, Hai Wei Hou.
3rd Year student, Omar Noori gives the thumbs up.
Aaron Fryer, one of my talented students from this year's 2nd Year.
Last Saturday, April 30 2011 was the annual Open House at Sheridan College. Once again I was asked to draw caricatures alongside several talented students to promote our BAA Animation program. Here is the first of 2 posts to show some samples along with the subjects:
Every year on this date I like to celebrate the birthday of my favourite actor, James Garner. Although I don't have a new caricature in full colour to put up this time, I do have this article I wrote for the "Exagerrated Features" magazine, the quarterly publication for all subscribing members of the ISCA. In it, I describe my own personal working method in creating one of my celebrity caricatures, and I use James Garner as the subject for this tutorial. The series of rough sketches at the top of this post I had done especially for the article, and they demonstrate how I sometimes will help familiarize myself with the subject before developing the final piece of art. I don't always take this step, but I do recommend it as a way of warming up and finding the "design" of the head and face, particularly when you may be struggling to get the likeness. I hope this tutorial will be of benefit to those of you who also enjoy drawing caricatures of celebrities:
Now that you've read all that, you may now relax and enjoy this clip from The Rockford Files to see Jim Garner's expressions for real:
I've worked as a cartoonist in the print medium for over 30 years, including 10 years as a Character Artist with the Disney Company. For 11 years I taught Character Design in the Animation program at Sheridan College. Currently, I freelance for various clients with my cartoon and caricature illustration.
Though my feet may be physically planted in this 21st century, my mind prefers to take up residence in the 1960's - a time when everything in commercial art and popular entertainment still made sense to me. It was Sinatra's world and I'm still livin' in it. Welcome to The Cartoon Cave...
