Just Draw Something

I don't know if I have been under a rock or something but I finally caught on to the new web app craze called Draw Something. It is basically a reincarnation of the old game Pictionary for your smart phone, tablet or iPad. The screens are small and using your big unwieldy finger to draw is far from ideal but it is great practice and a most excellent way to get creative. I saw one DS on the Draw Something Facebook page for the clue "APE" which was the final scene of POTA where Charleton Heston walks down the beach and sees the statue of Liberty half buried in the sand. Very clever!


Here are a few of the ones I have done recently. Unfortunately, I missed a few good ones as I didn't know how to do a screen capture until just yesterday. Get the app and have some fun Drawing Something!

Caricature 37/500: The Donald

Here is a guy I should have drawn a long time ago. Everyone does a caricature of Donald Trump. He's a walking caricature with his awesome hair and eyebrows, pursed lips and piercing scowls. Plus, we share a birthday so, along with Burle Ives and Boy George, we make quite a team of June 14th entertainers.

I decided to do this of course because the new season of Celebrity Apprentice has started. I never make it through a full season but I am always there for the premier to see who the next Gary Busey or Meatloaf trainwreck will be. This year I made it through two episodes. It doesn't seem like there are any so-called celebrities interesting enough to tune in for this year. I didn't know who most of this group was anyway. Oh well, I am sure he will have a new season with new celebrities I have never heard of in the fall and I will give it another few episodes.


So here he is, The Donald. Pencil sketched, scanned and digitally inked and colored.

Caricature 36/500: Ink Master

My wife hates tattoos. I have a small one from 25 years ago that I could take or leave. So go figure that when the new reality show Ink Master comes out challenging a dozen or so tattooists to compete for a $100,000 prize we are both completely enthralled with it.


Each week there is a new assignment which involves a bunch of random people showing up and drawing names out of a hat for a randomly themed tattoo by a random contestant. The contestants have 5-6 hours to permanently tattoo these folks with whatever pops into their heads for a grade at the end of the episode. The worst tattoo of the bunch gets the contestant sent home and leaves the "victim" with a lifelong story to tell about how they got the worst tattooist on a long forgotten reality tv show. I'd love to see the waiver forms for this production. The people showing up for their free tattoos, some of which quit halfway through from pain or ask for something so big it can only be half finished in the allotted time, are the most intriguing parts of the show. Some of the tattoos were awesome but some were terrible. If you happen to get stuck with the Tribal Tattoo expert when the assignment is Pinup Girl you are totally screwed... for life!


It is hosted by a couple of expert tattooists and the highly inked Dave Navarro, the guitarist from Jane's Addiction and host of a few other reality competition shows. I'm not sure what qualifies Dave to judge tattoos as his skin is covered with a lot of random bat wings and squigglies but he does a fair enough job of keeping the competition moving and firing people.


The Fair Xty, a "Housewifes of You Name It" expert, says her favorite part of the show is everyone's no-holds-barred brutal honesty. There are no innuendos on this program. If your tattoo sucks, the judges tell you it sucks, the other contestants tell you it sucks and they do everything they can to make you feel like crap for ruining that person's body. They also rake each other over for taking the easy way out or making bad decisions on color use or placement. It all becomes quite dramatic at times.


Anyway, Dave Navarro has a unique look with his long face, extreme eyebrows and makeup so I thought I would work up a full-body caricature of him. As always, I did the sketch in pencil and scanned it it to Photoshop for a digital inking and coloring. I am pretty pleased with the results. My life drawing class has definitely helped with body proportions.

Caricature 35/500: The Fair Xty

As some of you may know, my wife - the fair Christy - is a great cook and pastry chef.Yesterday she got a new toy in the mail... a chocolate tempering machine! Don't feel bad, I didn't know what that means either. I still don't although for the price it must be something spectacular. The short of it is that it makes the chocolate shiny when you melt it and pour it in a mold to make candy bars and such. Apparently this is very time consuming to do by hand and this machine makes it all automatic. All I know for sure is that the house smells delicious.


What's the point, you ask? Well she has worked up a bunch of custom gourmet candy bars magically titled things like the "Salty Dharma" and the "Don't Be Bitter, My Sweet". She is kicking around the idea of selling them to friends and family for Easter and asked me to make up an order form for her. I said I would do it if I could include a caricature of her on it.


So here you have it... My first full-body female caricature. I sketched in pencil as usual and then inked and colored her digitally with my Wacom tablet.


She says it looks just like her. If you know her you can be the judge. If you don't you'll just have to take her word for it. If you are interested in the wonderful confections she creates I invite you to wander over to Fudge Ripple Blog and have a look.

Comments are now fixed...

I haven't had a comment in over a month. I just figured nobody cared but today when the fair Xty tried to enter one she found herself at a dead end. Apparently, the comment box wasn't working correctly. She was able to enter a comment and choose an identity but there was no "submit" button. After some research I was able to change the comment menu to come up as a separate window which now, for some reason, luckily includes the submit button.


I therefore apologize to the thousands of fans who tried to leave me praise over the last month and were unable to complete their submissions. Hopefully the comment section for each page will now work flawlessly. Sorry about that!

Drawing Class Week 7: Uncle Bud

This week's homework assignment for life drawing class was to do a member of your family or friend in some pose other than simple portrait. I chose to draw my grandma's baby brother, Great Uncle Bud.


My grandmother was born in 1904 and died in 1955 so I never met her. Her little brother was born in 1922, just 6 years before my dad. My dad is long gone too but Uncle Bud is still around having just turned 89 at the end of last year.


Bud still lives on the family farm in the house where he was born . He is a widower but luckily has about a dozen children (now in their 50s and 60s) who own many of the surrounding farms and are able to keep and eye on him. He still has a few cows and rides tractors and ATVs around his 200 or so acres.


The picture I used for this drawing was taken at a family reunion about four years ago. We had been on the go all day long and he was just taking a moment to rest against the back of the rental car and think about the hundred or so descendants of his parents gathered around. He is the last of his siblings by over 20 years and the only one to see the family tree's last two generations.