can you believe she's still alive?

i think i've mentioned somewhere around here that my intention for 2009 was to take 12 of my unfinished sketches from the "a to zed" project of 2008, (for newcomers to this not-blog who aren't familiar with the a to zed project, search "a to zed" in the top left corner of this page) and finish up one a month, in traditional media (mostly coloured pencil). well, i don't know that the one-a-month plan is really gonna pan out now, what with it being near the end of february and my just having finished the first one!

anyway, here it is, amy winehouse. anyone who recalls my original sketch may recognize a few changes i've made in doing this up all nicey-like. a few likeness points, such as the shapes of the nose and mouth and adding the pouchiness of her cheeks, which i somehow missed out on the first time around. but the biggest, most noticeable change is the tattoos. in my sketch, i made all her tattoos show drug- and alcohol-related images. doing up the finished version, i didn't feel good about making fun of her addictions, but i still didn't want to just copy them directly from reality. i wanted to make them funny. hope i was reasonably successful at that. anyway, here it is, and all comments and critiques are welcome and appreciated.

thanx!

a to zed

so, recently, i got the following idea: there are 26 letters in the alphabet, and 52 (26 x 2) weeks in the year. my idea is that each week this year, i will do one celebrity caricature. i will go through the alphabet and draw one guy and one girl for each letter, so by the end of the year, i will have drawn the alphabet in caricature twice. some of these may end up being complete pieces, some may just be very rough sketches, and some may be somewhere in between, but i will try to remember, and to find the time, for one caricature a week.

also, rather than insisting on each letter standing for the celebrity's last name, i am going to allow myself first or last names, or even character names sometimes, thus giving myself a little more leeway when i get to the more difficult letters.

so, to begin, as we are already in the second week of the year, i post my first two caricatures together (pardon the rush job on the shading on both of these. i was trying for relatively quick sketches) :

i may be getting hired for a commission caricature of art carney as ed norton, and since that fit perfectly in with this plan, i decided to do a practice caricature of him as my alpha male, if you will feel free to critique, as i've never watched the honeymooners, and am not really all that familiar with carney's face.



and, since she is the monthly challenge over at e-caricatures, amy winehouse is my a female:



i'm open to suggestions on future letters (although i don't promise i'll use them).