Comic Con at the Elmhurst Library

I did this event at the Elmhurst Library last year and I was honored to be called back.

https://katherinehilden.wordpress.com/2015/08/29/pop-culture-at-the-elmwood-public-library/

Comic Con is a big event.  Various artists who work in cartooning, comic strips, manga, and caricature are set up at tables where they demonstrate and explain their art. It’s an exciting day for kids. Many come in the costume of their favorite character from movies such as Star Wars.  Capes galore!

Last year I worked in black/white, which the kids and parents enjoyed.  But this year I worked in full color, which was fabulous! Color takes just a bit longer, but for kids this is the way to go.  B/w is elegant, but let’s face it, color pops off the page!

Thank you, Kim!

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The Fourth in Glencoe

On my favorite holiday I get to do my favorite thing under a white tent on the village green in Glencoe.  Yeah!  And I get to work in color on this colorful day!  Thank you, Robin.

As you can see,  I drew mostly kids.  You can also see by their reaction to the drawing that they knew what a caricature is.   Sometimes I hear parents explaining to their kids that a caricature is a cartoon of you.  Not here.  Everybody here knew the difference.  So, let me make one thing perfectly clear (hmmm): a caricature is not a cartoon.

I enjoyed drawing the sophisticated kids there in Glencoe, but on this post I’m leading with the picture of a new dad with his ten-week old daughter…because it’s so funny.  The reason it’s funny is that I drew him as the opposite of what he actually was.   He was totally devoted to this baby, very attentive and a virtuoso with the pacifier.  To make this point, I drew him as just the opposite–overwhelmed and confused.  You know, how you sometimes express the opposite of how you actually feel?  That’s it.  It’s called irony.

He and I chatted about how calm and alert the baby was.  Well, no wonder, with a dad like that. We also agreed that she completely upstaged him.  He was in a supporting role and she was the star. And he wanted it that way.  Lucky little girl.  That’s why I drew her so big and solid.

It was a great Fourth!———————————————————-

 

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Tails of Hope at The Grand

The people at Tails of Hope in Highland Park rescue dogs from cruel owners and bad situations, rehabilitate them and then try to find good homes for them. Last Saturday, The Grand, a supermarket on Green Bay Road in Winnetka, hosted an Adopt-a-Palooza in their parking lot. I was set up under an umbrella and had the pleasure of drawing dogs with their “persons” in close harmony. The dogs, of course, ran the show. To depict the communication and closeness between person and dog, I drew the person imitating the dog’s posture of obedience. The tongue had to hang out. This is fun to draw! Many people didn’t come with their dog and asked me to work from a photo on their smartphone, which they proudly presented. This I can do and the work was well received and with much laughter. After all, true dog lovers think their dogs are funny.  Thank you, David!
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Pop Culture at the Elmwood Public Library

How can librarians show kids that their library is totally awesome? At the Elmhust Public Library they start with a fabulous building that looks tempting just from the outside. Inside, the children’s library looks magical. As if that weren’t enough this library brought in a face painter, cartoonists, illustrators and that famous caricaturist, Whatsername. It was a Saturday morning, the light streamed in from the high arched roof and I drew thirty-three people in two hours, mostly grammar school aged kids.
Some kids came in costumes, like Princess Leah and Spiderman, but mostly it was about sports and just I-want-to-see-how-you’re-going-to-draw-me. Or me and my best friend.  It was quite a wonderful morning. Let’s face it, librarians are the best. Ok, let’s look that up. So I googled “are librarians the best?” This is what I got:
http://ebookfriendly.com/best-quotes-about-libraries-librarians/
For those of you who are fascinated by Manga and Japanese and Chinese illustration, here’s the artist who was at the Elmhurst Library event:
Addie Afable, artisticdragon.com, addie@artisticdragon.com. 847-877-8785
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More Calvin and Hobbes

The Calvin and Hobbes Christmas card that I posted on January 25^th inspired a gift idea.  Here are two brothers, age six and nine, who own the complete volumes of the comic strip and are avid readers.  I misspelled Thomas to add an appropriate Calvin twist.  Best to you, Andy and Tommes!

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Calvin and Hobbes

Or Cody and Fynn!

This was the cover of an 8”x10” Christmas card.  It’s an adaptation of Bill Watterson’s classic Calvin and Hobbes stamp.  I’ve done many Christmas cards, but this one is truly awesome.

When you open the card, you get five Calvin and Hobbes strips with this Lake Bluff family playing the characters in the comic strip.  I worked from photos of the family and never met them.  I really had only one angle of the dad’s face and the girl’s face to work with.  For mom and the boy I managed to also get profiles.  At first I was worried that the dad always looking directly out at the viewer (instead of at the scene in front of him) would not work.  But to my surprise, it works wonderfully.  It’s

uncanny, how  the strip with the car is even funnier because dad is looking straight at us in his utter confusion.

What a clever idea! This was a rewarding project for me.  Thanks Bob and Cindy!

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Dogs Pointing

Last year I drew Rose Houston for a card she was sending out to her friends to let them know that she had recovered from her surgery and was now back in the swing with full energy.  Not a hair out of place, as usual, she’s skateboarding and her two dogs are running along with her.  This year she has a new house and wants to send out Christmas cards showing her and the dogs as they are pointing to the house.  She needed the dogs redrawn in this pose.

To draw dogs in such a human gesture, I had to go for a cartoon version of them.  You can tell that one is a poodle and the other a skinny greyhound.  I had to push them into cartoon mode, complete with white gloves.  The white gloves on animals was a Disney invention:  the paw becomes a hand without anatomical weirdness. This convention has been around for seventy years and we’re used to it.  (Look , Mickey  and Bugs are doing things with his “hands.” )  Only with gloves can a dog be pointing.  Notice the other convention:   three fingers.

Rose loves the drawing. Thank you, Rose, for having a sense of humor about your darlings.

For more on drawing dogs, https://katherinehilden.wordpress.com/?s=dogs

Last year’s post about Rose’s recuperation,   https://katherinehilden.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/hey-all-im-back-on-my-feet-again/

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