a short break from all that alphabetical ridiculousness.

this dude is the subject of this month's caricature challenge at the caricature message board known as e-caricatures.
it's a pretty quick sketch, with a very quick shading job.

luciano pavarotti:

he's named after a block of frozen water!

every now and then, i get the urge to break out of my "comfort zone" (to use a worn-out phrase) by trying to caricature a celebrity of whom i'm not particularly a fan, and therefore am not that familiar with. this was the motivation behind my choice of "i" male-- rapper ice cube (i really, really hate rap!). the reason for the red is just experimentation. i wanted to try something monochromatic in some other sahde than my usual black, and for some reason (or perhaps for no reason at all), red was just the colour that called out to me.

so, here he is. ice cube:



oh, and, congratulate me on finally being officially caught up! woo-hooooooo!

... until next time i fall behind.

don't say she looks like an alien. just don't.

okay, here's my "h" female. i was going to rush out a quick sketch of this one and post it on friday, which would have gotten me caught up to where i should have been. however, once the basic line sketch was done, i somehow felt that this had to be my next official finished work. so i put some more time into it. hope you like it, and hopefully i'll be able to get an "i" male sketch done this week as well, and then be caught up.

audrey hepburn:

DUDE! BONUS, DUDE! WOO-HOO! AWESOME! YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

so, i was watching "dexter" the other night (the watered down, network tv version), and i thought, "man, that guy who plays dexter is a caricature waiting to happen." so, not to let him down, i made it happen. on paper! with a pencil! then after the show was over. i looked him up on imdb to find out his name, and it turns out his last name starts with an "h". so here, ladies and gentlemen, is a bonus "h" male, michael c. hall.

(sorry about the lines down the image. my scanner has just suddenly started putting those there. gotta look into that.)

famous american dramatic actor, hugh laurie!

i've been going through a bit of a bad run lately, missing likenesses on a lot of my recent posts. some by a little, some by a lot. i would like to go back and touch up the last few caricatures i've posted here (gwyneth, clooney, frida, the guy on the right from flight of the conchords...), correcting likenesses as well as i can, but in the meantime, i've moved on to the "h" male. "h" can be for "hugh" or "house", whichever you prefer. hopefully, i haven't completely missed the mark on this one.

"g" is for "getting caught up".

this officially puts me only two weeks behind, if i'm not mistaken.

"g", as it happens, is also for "gwyneth"

george clooney is george clooney, playing george clooney in "the story of george clooney: the george clooney story".

not exactly breaking new ground here for my "g" male. i've seen a lot of caricatures of this guy. some have worked for me, some haven't... so i thought i'd give it a try. it's a pretty quick one.

george clooney.

hey, that doesn't look like salma hayek!

one thing i've been wanting to do with the a to zed project is to diversify my subject matter a little more. that is to say that, while most of my famous-people caricatures tend to be of actors and musicians, due to my fascination with movies, music and tv, i wanted to try to branch out a little into into other areas, such as literature, fine art, and maybe (maybe) even one day start doing a few from the two areas i tend to avoid most, politics and sports (i avoid them because they bore me and i hate them). how's that for a run-on sentence?
anyway, with that in mind, as i was trying to think of whom i was going to draw for my "f" female, and rejecting the first few names that came to my head (farrah fawcett, fran drescher, frances mcdormand...), the name "frida kahlo" suddenly popped into my head and, with it, so did her eyebrows. and i instantly knew she was the one. i also saw it as a chance to indulge my enjoyment for caricaturing fine artists in their own painting styles, like i did with vincent van gogh and salvador dali. so i plan on making this my next finished piece, maybe even using it also as a chance to get back to acrylic paints, which i've been kinda wanting to do for some time now. in the meantime, however, in the interest of keeping the a to zed project moving along (and really wondering how in the world i'm ever going to get caught up), i thought for now, i'd just post the rough sketch. i referred to a bunch of actual photos for the likeness, but am basing the final artwork on the attached self-portrait (did frida kahlo ever paint anything other than self-portraits?) so, anyway....

frida kahlo.

and now, a message from our sponsor...

just trying to get the word out for these guys.

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dear internets with curtis, mike and ben

"f" is for "foo da fa fa"

"f" male(s):
flight of the conchords.

'nuff said.