Sunday, October 10, 2010

Krystal and Belle

Here's some caricatures I drew of a couple of nice girls, sisters Krystal and Belle, who were attending Visual Arts Brampton last week. Every Tuesday evening from 7:00 to 9:30 we have an open Life Drawing session. No requirement to sign up for anything, just pay as you go, any week you want to join us. For those in the Brampton area, just click on the above link to see more info. I hope to see you there!



6 comments:

Tony DiStefano said...

Pete ,you bring a lot of FUN and joy to these caracatures.Your draftsmen ship is that wonderful combination of power and flow.I think your Disney and Hersfield influences combined to give you somthing original and unique.And most of all they look like the people your drawing!So here is a question,(or as Groucho used to say ,"you certainly know a question when you here one.") How long do these take to make? Good luck to you!

Pete Emslie said...

Thanks for your kind words, Tony. It's true that I have a lot of fun drawing people and hopefully that shows in the resulting sketches. I always try to capture personality along with physical likeness, which is why I prefer sketching either from life or from video, as opposed to working from still photos which do not give the same results.

If I'm working on my normal size of 11 by 14, it usually averages out to about 6 to 8 minutes per sketch. Working large like the ones pictured here probably runs more towards ten minutes or so. These ones are sketched with a Pitt "Extra Soft" oil base pencil on a pad of manilla paper. I like the feel of the Pitt pencils on manilla, as I get a nice "sculptural" quality to my sketches that way. Working this large is also great for keeping the arm moving in broad strokes, getting a lot of energy into the drawing.

Thanks for your inquiry!

Pavel Jakubec said...

Super !

hanzz said...

you're possibly the best live artist !

jeanokada said...

Hi, Pete, I'm a big fan of yours from Brazil. When you make a caricature you always hit on the first try?

Pete Emslie said...

Hey Jean,

Working from a live model, I usually get a pretty fair likeness in one try, although not always one that measures up to my self-imposed high standard. Often the resulting sketch will not quite meet my own satisfaction in terms of design and exaggeration, somehow lacking pizzazz. In fact, when drawing at events I usually find that my first few caricatures will be a little off, but after about a half dozen I'm hitting my stride and am happier with the results. I don't know quite why that happens, but it's normally the case with me.

When drawing celebrities from video reference, it may actually take me a few rough attempts before I really find the design of their face. Some likenesses prove to be more elusive than others. It actually took me many tries before I felt that I'd gotten a good likeness of Frank Sinatra. In contrast, his fellow Rat Packer, Dean Martin comes easily to me. I have no idea why some facial designs give me more trouble than others!