Colour Caricatures on the spot at Hen Party

INSPIRED BY ANOTHER caricaturist's idea, I brought the entire arsenal of colour markers to this Hen Party last Saturday night.

When there are twenty-five or fewer guests at a party it is a great idea to draw them all onto one large sheet of paper which they can all then photograph or arrange prints from a local print shop.

The way my friend, Paul Baker and I do this is to take photos of each guest with our tablets and then use the tablets as the desktop reference device from which we draw the caricatures.

The advantages are that the caricaturist works quietly at a side table (supplied with glasses of wine!) while the festivities continue in another part of the restaurant or room. There is less pressure than in face-to-face drawing although the new problem of composing a group of faces on the spot takes a little getting used to. Faces of different sizes can appear which you might be able to spot above, but which, thankfully, the finished results cancel out.

If the quality of the photos and the lighting is right (which wasn't ideal at this particular event) I found that I can produce a 'studio'-style caricature which very nearly reaches that level of quality as opposed to the quicker, on the spot, face-to-face caricatures which are more the norm.

Another new element to this method of entertaining people at parties is the final 'reveal'. The assembled company were so blown away by the final presentation of a more-or-less finished piece of cartoon artwork that they cheered and applauded me to the rafters which was very nice.

All in all, what I shall now refer to as the 'Live Studio Group Caricature' was a great experience and I look forward to taking bookings for more! Roll up!