Here are another bunch of caricatures from the Sheridan Open House held a couple weeks ago. Mostly young kids in this batch, including these first two little cuties who are the daughters of one of the Sheridan staff. I've still got more to post but I'll do them later.
Yeah, I know that the Brits have already been to the polls to vote, but it turns out there's still no clear winner. Conservative David Cameron may have had the most votes, but not enough to make a clean sweep of it, so sitting PM Gordon Brown still has a chance at keeping his job. Well I say good on Gordo! If it was up to me, I think the Brits should keep him in power. Despite this dour Scot looking like the human equivalent of Eeyore the donkey, I think Gordon Brown is an intelligent and articulate guy who has well proven himself. But more importantly, Gordon Brown has a face that is a gift to all caricaturists!!
I mean, just look at this line-up of the three candidates. David Cameron and his Liberal Democrat opponent, Nick Clegg, are both a couple of blandly handsome young fellows who are virtually indistinguishable from each other! What self-respecting cartoonist would want to draw either one of their generic mugs?
Gordon Brown stands out like a sore thumb next to these two "Ken dolls". And a sore thumb of a face is far more interesting, in my opinion. Look - the bags under his eyes even have bags of their own! (Damn, how'd I miss that in my caricature?)
I mean, really?! Cameron, Clegg? Clegg, Cameron? Your guess is as good as mine!!
I believe that Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe may be the two most iconic figures who have represented female beauty in the movies. But, while Marilyn was blonde, voluptuous and an image of pure sexuality, Audrey was the more fragile, doe-eyed waif who really captured our hearts. Certainly Audrey Hepburn has always been my favourite actress, and much of her appeal is in that pixieish figure with the big dark eyes. Tragically, Audrey left us in 1993 at the relatively early age of 64, after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. She'd largely retired from films after Robin and Marian in 1976, devoting her last few years to helping the children of the world through her association with UNICEF. Audrey was truly a beautiful woman, through and through - a genuine class act.
Interestingly, Audrey only made about 30 films, and probably not more than 20 of those would be well known to her fans, starting with her Oscar winning role in Roman Holiday in 1953. I've seen all of her major films but two: War and Peace and The Unforgiven, although I do own them on DVD just waiting to be watched. I'd be hard pressed to name my absolute favourite, but My Fair Lady, Funny Face and Charade would be right up there. But then there's so many others that I love too!
One of my earliest movie memories is of seeing My Fair Lady at the drive-in with my parents, though I'm guessing it may have been in a reissue several years after it first debuted in 1964. I've seen it dozens of times since, as I consider it the perfect musical film, despite the fact that poor Audrey didn't get to do her own singing as the cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle.
She was able to show off all of her talents in Funny Face a few years earlier, though, singing and dancing alongside Fred Astaire. The sequence in the Parisian café, where Audrey, in a black leotard and hair up in a ponytail, does a modern jazz number is just a stunner. She'd had training as a ballerina in her youth and it's really a shame that she wasn't given more opportunities on film to display her incredible dancing ability. As for her singing, though not as notable as her dancing, I still find her voice to be warm and lovely when she sings the wistful and poignant "Moon River" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Composer Henry Mancini figured out what a comfortable vocal range was for Audrey, and wrote "Moon River" tailored specifically to her admittedly limited range. Frankly, I find it hard not to get misty-eyed when I hear her singing it as she strums her guitar in her Manhattan apartment window. It's a very beautiful sequence.
For my caricature of Audrey Hepburn, I had first started doing some sketches of her (including the one above) from Paris When It Sizzles, in which she costars with William Holden. Though I love her 1960's stylish looks in that film, I must admit that I find the film itself to be one of her weakest. Therefore, I decided to switch my attention to her role in Charade, where she costarred for the only time with the wonderful Cary Grant. This was a team-up on screen that was just meant to be, with the two stars obviously enjoying working with each other immensely. For me, that was Hollywood royalty at its best, and the film itself just sparkles with wit and sophistication. 
Interestingly, just recently I heard a couple of my Sheridan animation students discussing Charade before class started, as it turns out they're both big Audrey Hepburn fans themselves. And so I would like to dedicate this post to students, Justin Hartley (a fellow classic film buff, pictured in my recent Sheridan caricatures post) and Nicole Kozak, who coincidentally resembles Audrey Hepburn with her big dark eyes, as you can see in this caricature of her at right!
So, now let's end off this tribute to lovely Audrey with the aforementioned scene of her singing "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Enjoy!
A week after classes have officially ended, there's still two events that wrap up the school year at Sheridan College. There is the annual Industry Day, where representatives from various animation studios, both local and from the U.S. come to view the films created by the graduating 4th Year students. I'll defer to my colleague, Mark Mayerson to describe that event in greater detail on his blog.
The other event is the Open House, where the general public is invited to visit Sheridan College and see what students in all of the artistic venues are capable of producing. Once again I agreed to participate alongside several of our very talented animation students in sketching caricatures of the visitors to the college, and here are a bunch of samples of those folks that I drew. I'll post the rest of the photos in a second part in a couple days, as there's too many to upload in one shot:
Yes, as April draws to a close, so too does this year of the Sheridan College Animation program. The last few weeks are always pretty crazy, with students trying to stay on top of last assignment deadlines and we in the faculty going bug-eyed from all of the final grading! But now it's done and everybody can breathe a collective sigh of relief and start enjoying the spring and summer weather to come.
Here are a few photos I took this week and some caricatures of my 2nd Year students:
The selection process behind which student caricatures made it into this particular montage was determined by the following group shot photo at Monaghan's Pub across the street from Sheridan, taken after my classes wrapped up on Thursday April 22. The students in the caricature are Laurel Dalgleish, Evee Fex-Chriszt, Drew Petursson, Justin Hartley, Keely Turple and Caroline Hung. Hopefully you can match them all up with their real faces pictured below. The wise old sage in the photo is none other than my friend and Sheridan Animation colleague, Mark Mayerson, whose terrific blog is probably well known to many of my readers.
This pretty young lady is Lisa Kathofer, another one of my 2nd Year Character Design students who finally had her caricature drawn on the last day. Watch those deadlines, Lisa!
The fellow pictured above is Josh Heisie, a student in the Film and Television program at Sheridan, who is a friend of my former student, Amir Avni.
For the entire series of Sheridan 2009/2010 2nd Year mugshots, you can find them all posted here on my Facebook page.
Incidentally, for those in the vicinity, I'll be drawing caricatures along with several animation students for visitors to Sheridan's Open House, coming up this Saturday, May 1st. Here are some pics from last year's event. I hope some of you can stop by to say hello!
I make no bones about the fact that I love to draw cute characters. Cartoons that are cute and appealing are what I grew up with, and I still far prefer that over the ugly schlock of today, therefore that is what I gravitate towards in my own cartooning. Here are some more examples of recent doodles that explore that theme.
In the one above, I decided to scribble out several animated poses of the same little guy bouncing his basketball. Though I have never animated per se, I have always enjoyed bringing a character to life through continuity poses and expressions. Of course, this is the essence of what I have done for many years in illustrating children's books for Disney. Ideally I would love to start illustrating books with my own characters, but I'm not sure that children's book publishers even like cartoons anymore. Regrettably, they seem to have forgotten that the most famous kids' illustrator of all time, Dr. Seuss, was in fact a cartoonist.
These were a couple of quick impressions I scribbled of other diners at the restaurant I was at several weeks ago. The old guy reminded me a bit of Ed McMahon and the young girl had similar features to Drew Barrymore. The cat was not actually in the restaurant, but snuck into my doodling just the same.
Okay, I guess these ugly rascals can't be called "cute", but they were fun to draw. After finishing up a Suduko, I started aimlessly doodling a couple of ugly mugs, which then led to a whole series of unsavory mobster types appearing around the edge of the puzzle. I particularly like the psychotic looking fellow in the lower right corner and the wall-eyed rascal in the top middle. The whole exercise was really meant to explore facial features of varying shape, size and relative placement on various head shapes, which is something I stress constantly in my Sheridan College Character Design class.
Yes, I've celebrated his birthday for the last couple of years on this blog and I aim to keep on doing it. Jim Garner remains my all-time favourite actor and I never get tired of watching his many great film roles and sketching my impressions of him. For this year's caricature, I watched The Great Escape, the classic WWII film from 1963, which was based on the true story of a POW prison breakout. Jim Garner plays Lt. Hendley, also known as "The Scrounger", for his ability to scrounge all manner of raw materials from within the camp that can then be jerry-rigged into usable tools to be utilized in the digging of not one, but three tunnels to the woods outside the fence!
The Great Escape is a hugely thrilling epic that I've watched a number of times over the years, though I try to limit my viewings so that it still feels fresh every time I watch it. There's a lot of humanity in the film, most notably in the friendship that develops between Garner's Lt. Hendley and Blythe, "The Forger" played by British character actor, Donald Pleasence. Just prior to the planned breakout, it's decided that poor Blythe is to be left behind in the camp due to the risk he presents to the mission, having suffered a deterioration of his eyesight to the point of near blindness. Hendley insists that Blythe still be included, offering to take full responsibility for getting him out and away under his protection. That act of kindness and human decency is a trait I like to attribute to Jim Garner in real life, too. Jim has always been outspoken on various issues on which he takes a principled stand, often being honest to the point of bluntness in his opinions. Many of his film roles have portrayed him as, if not the typical "hero", then certainly the "reluctant hero" who may wish to avoid trouble if he can, but will rise to the occasion when necessary. 
As I've mentioned in a past entry, I got to meet Jim Garner back in 1982 when he was starring in NBC's Bret Maverick, a sequel series to his classic original Maverick from about 20 years before. Here is a photo that was taken on that occasion showing me and my friend Bryan Stoller with Jim, actress Darleen Carr and singer/actor Ed Bruce on the set at Warner Brothers. I wish that I'd had a better camera - where was digital when I needed it? Also, I'm kicking myself for having blinked when the pic was taken! Still, I'm happy to report that Jim Garner was as charismatic and nice in person as he often appears in his film and TV roles, and it was such a thrill to meet him. Happy Birthday, Jim!
Here's a bunch more of my recent newspaper doodles drawn in blank areas of my daily Globe and Mail over a succession of leisurely lunches at my favourite local eateries. The oddly dyslexic Bell Canada ad pictured above seemed to offer up an interesting layout in which to fit a bevy of cute showgirls. It started out with just the one in the lower right, then led to one after another as my pen meandered clockwise around the page.
Uh oh, I think the guy in the above photo may be in trouble now that the gal's cartoon hubby has unexpectedly walked in the door! The family pets apparently never liked the rascal anyhow.
As for the following images, I believe that any product will sell better if the corporation hires cute cartoon gals to hawk its wares:
Aloha!
