I haven’t posted in a while but still lots and lots of sketching. However, I haven’t gone out to sketch architecture or spaces as usual. I was invited to do some live caricature and, being now a freelancer, said yes. The thing is that for that gig I was asked to do five minute caricatures, just black and white, and I had never done any live work! I had around two weeks to practice; I sketched hundreds of faces trying to achieve likeness while sketching really fast.
I’d considered myself a fast sketcher, but this is a whole different story. My fifteen minute architectural sketches now seem like a century! I had been practicing to do the caricatures between five and six minutes, which I thought it would be good enough. When I got to the first gig, the hostess said I had to do between 25 and 30 caricatures in two hours. I did my best, but only could do 20.
So five minute caricatures won’t cut it… it doesn’t add up. And the hostess had to take a pic, then call the next one, I had to set up the sheet… lots of wasted minutes. So my wife devised a way to save some of those minutes for the second time. We had two clipboards, already set up. As soon as I signed the caricature, I handed it to her, she erased the pencil guidelines, did all the ritual of taking the photo and everything, while I was already doing the next person. This helped me a lot, as I finally made it to twenty five.
I think I got a little stressed trying to get the likeness, but in these past three weeks I learned so many things I know that next time it will be better. I have been watching some artists online who do some great stuff in one minute, so that’s where I’ll be aiming. And all my background is a huge help, as I have a lot of experience trying to tell a lot with just a few scribbles. I just need to keep practicing.
As a new member of the Asociación de Caricaturistas de Puerto Rico I hope to keep developing my style, learning from the veterans and also sharing everything I know from my previous experience. They are a fantastic group of artists and I’m really happy to be a part of it.
Here are some of the pictures: