Jym's Private Party, Elk Grove, CA November 2016

Smaller, intimate events can become a great opportunity to try new tools and techniques. Larger events give only a few hours to capture every face where speed and accuracy is priority, Parties, like Jym's, gives me a chance to engage with each model, look for small nuances both physical and personality that I can incorporate into the caricature.

In a private setting, I like to post the work on a window or wall to give the guests a chance to enjoy the artwork with a laugh, a comment, or even a heckle.  There is a fine line between exaggeration, which is finding something about your character and making it a featured character while maintaining likeness, and distortion, which is taking that feature and characterizing it sometimes at the loss of likeness. If you have big hair, expect it to be caricatured. If you have a small or square chin, expect it to be caricatured. And in the end, step back and say "Man, that really captures me!"