Who knew? McCordsville!

As a recent transplant from Chicago, I make an effort to study the local geography.  I look things up:   McCordsville, a suburb of Indy, was founded in 1865 by—surprise—the McCord family.  Just as well, Chicago was named after the indigenous word for onion.

You get to McCordsville by taking 96^th east a bit.  You know you’ve arrived when mansion-envy hits you and you notice that everybody is looking way above average.

So, as a caricaturist I had to face these DNA winners. On the bell curve of photogenic, this family was on the rarified rim, like the bunch that passed the screen test.  But, luckily, I’m prepared for all sorts of thrills when I head out with the tools of the trade.

Thank you, Sarah and John!

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Presenting: The Juggler!

If you have a friend or a boss who has too much energy, too much expertise, too much personality and, generally, is “just too much”—you may not be able to come up with something to buy as a present for this person. We may be dealing with a juggler-type here.  You need to turn to an expert caricaturist for the remedy of your gift dilemma.  Ta-tah!  The Juggler!

Thank you, Connie.

 

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More Jasper Laughing Out Loud

Jasper, Indiana is the place to see and been…at least during Strassenfest.

To continue the previous post…

 

 

 

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Making Some Noise in Jasper, Indiana

Jasper is a town about an hour South of Bloomington. If you happen to find yourself there because you made a wrong turn off the highway, you may think you’ve been transported to a Bavarian village. The street signs are in German.   Here, State Street  is called “Staat Strasse.”  So, Strasse means street.  The annual festival where these disciplined, hardworking, law-abiding descendants of Germans allow themselves to make some major noise is called  “Strassenfest.”

Jasper people have names with lots of Umlauts, like Kluemper and Buechlein, which I helped them pronounce.  If it’s not the Umlaut, it’s the “sch” and “tz” clumps of consonants that catch your ear and eye.  For example, a restaurant called “Schnitzelbank.”  Say it. Have a Kleenex handy. Gesundheit!

I had the fortune to participate last August. (A little late in posting this, wouldn’t you say.)  Over a three-day weekend I drew and practiced my German for a total of eleven hours.  I was set up under the authoritative, majestic columns of the courthouse in the center of town.  The columns may have been majestic and authoritative, but my drawings, not so much.  With these jovial, good-natured Jasper folk sitting in front of me, my marker flowed easy and, well, jovially.  Let’s just say it was a blast!

Thank you, Heath!

More pictures in the next post.

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Sailing on a Limerick

In a gift caricature you can make your friends sail with/on/over/under/against or despite of, well, anything.  You can even try to write a clean limerick and succeed.

The only prerequires are that a) you have a sense of humor and b) your friend has a sense of humor and c) you’re sure about that.

If you’re sure about that, a caricature is the best gift you can give.  Errrmmm, provided it’s a caricature by that famous Whatshername.  This one right here.

 

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Air and Sky

Imagine a front yard as big as a city park for neighborhood joggers: twelve times around and you’ve done your 3 miles.  To find such a yard in Indianapolis is thrilling enough, now add the post quarantine exhilaration of sharing this open greenery with a hundred and fifty ball tossing, laughing, chatting, singing, eating, and dancing newly liberated folk of all ages.  It’s an annual End-of-June bash for members and friends of a near-by Catholic church.  End-of-June?  Yes, indeed, some people will find any time of year, any month on the calendar as an excuse to have a wonderful get-together.

I shared a tent with a face painter and a balloon twister.  Smaller kids stood in line with a parent to have their wishes realized: lots of balloon dogs and star wars headgear and then vivid colors of a kitty face or a unicorn forehead.

School age kids were curious to see how I would portray them.  I never draw children ha-ha-funny.  I want to please them and, knowing that they themselves draw, I hope that my drawing will spark curiosity about how this expressiveness is achieved.

I only got to draw four adults.  You can see that here we get some ha-ha-funny.  Drawing adults is very different from drawing children. I love the psychological nuances of this business. When they see their drawing, adults will laugh out loud. A child will say, “Thank you, I like it.”

It was a wonderful afternoon.  Thank you, Chad!

 

 

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Prom at the J W Marriott in Indianapolis

The seniors from a Jesuit Prep School in Indianapolis went formal for their prom. The Marriott’s third floor ballroom was happily swarming with ladies in flowing soft gowns and gentlemen in tuxes: a movie set, really.  As you can see, the lights were way down, but the very first person who sat for me pulled out a phone to add dramatic lighting to the scene.  So clever and that became standard practice the whole evening.

What a treat for me to be able to draw these beaming faces!

Thank you, Jamie!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you so very much, Katherine. The students absolutely loved having you at the prom. Thanks for knocking it out of the park for us!!! Best wishes to you for a lovely spring season.

Kind regards,

Jamie

Wedding in Kentucky

Milton, Kentucky is on the Ohio River.  You can see the river there, forming a boundary of the expansive grounds where this wedding was held.  (The Ohio always takes my breath away.)  The wedding was spectacular, elegant and, in true Kentucky form, also relaxed…ever so sweet. The dress code–what dress code?—ranged from long drapey gowns to, hey, I’m comfortable in shorts, or barefoot.  Wonderful, good-humored people all around me made my work a breeze. The reactions to my drawings were uninhibited, hilarious and thoroughly encouraging.  Thank you, Joan!

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The drawings and the reactions to them are so lively and so fast that I often wish I could figure out how to catch the fun on video.  But that would cramp everyone’s style, wouldn’t it.  Now, here is an example of the reactions that I wish I had on video, but a few pictures will have to suffice:

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Hagerstown, Indiana

We were celebrating the town of Hagerstown.  No anniversary, no particular heroic deed, just the resourceful, enduring folks of Hagerstown.  Love it!

I drew seventeen people in probably an hour.  I say “probably” because for a while there were drops and we made adjustments under our tents and umbrellas, reminding ourselves that real rain was scheduled for much later.  Errr, not so.  The clouds moved in forthwith and everybody had to close shop.

Still, I value the drawing opportunity and I enjoyed the people watching.

Thank you Robin!

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Why Color? It’s all about Hair.

We’re back on Mt. Adams in Cincinnati.

https://katherinehilden.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/the-view-at-mount-adams-cincinnati/

Here are four I didn’t show in the last post. And that’s because for these, color was crucial.  It’s all about hair.

I love drawing a couple where he is bald and she has long blond hair.  But this only works in color.  Imagine if her strands of wafting hair behind his dome were just horizontal wavy lines.  Wouldn’t work.  But in color the effect is, as the woman obviously thought, hilarious.

Similarly with redheads.  This drawing works so well because my markers can celebrate the orange and gold of his hair and—please, notice—the thick fuzz on his arms. And then, the contrast between the two people can only be brought out in color.

Dear fans, color takes only a little longer than black/white. Not much.  Working in color does not involve “coloring in.”  From the very beginning, it’s a different way of working.  I can say so much in color, that in b/w couldn’t be said at all or only with a lot of extra –and time-consuming—lines.

Think color!

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