Q: You have a great skill for likeness, Every time that I look at your “park” caricatures I can really see the likeness in it. But, if you were asked to do a “realistic” illustration of someone, do you think you would be able to “carry their likeness” to the illustration? I’ve always felt that, a great caricaturist can be able to be a great portrait artist. How do you feel about this matter? Is it harder to do an portrait than to do a cartoon? or its the contrary?

A: I read or heard a quote by someone somewhere once that described a caricature as a “portrait with the volume turned up”. That is a very good way to look at it.

Likeness in both portraits and caricatures is achieved in the same way… by drawing the features so the viewer recognizes them as the subject’s features. With a portrait that simply means you draw the features as they really look. With a caricature you can also do that but change the relationships of the features, or you can draw something that represents the features in a way that is still recognizable to the viewer. By that I mean you don’t necessarily draw the eye exactly as the eye looks, but you come up with a visual representation of that eye instead. The best example of that is probably the work of Al Hirschfeld:

Look at the caricature of Katherine Hepburn. Her nose is not two small ovals, her eyes are not buttons beneath an arc and her mouth is not a thin half circle connected by a thicker curve. Hirschfeld was a master at representing features in the simplest of design terms and still make them recognizable as a whole. That is a very unforgiving way to approach caricature. You must have everything working perfectly together to get your likeness to work.

Getting back to your question, I find portraits equally as challenging as caricatures… it’s just a different set of challenges. Portrait work involves more patience and in most styles a stronger technical skill insofar as rendering goes. Caricatures can be drawn with contour line, but as a rule portraits are done in values. Really that is just technique, though. At the bottom, portraits and caricature both require the ability to see and capture the essence of a person… features, expression and personality. It’s the same skill set but on different paths.

Back when I was a college art student, the school I attended turned their nose up at cartooning. I was not allowed to do much cartooning in any assignments. Fortunately I was pretty competent at the realistic stuff as well. When I got the job doing caricatures during the summer, at first I struggled to get back into the swing of realistic drawing after a summer of nothing but caricatures. It took a few weeks to get that out of my head and get back to realistic proportion. Believe me, I THOUGHT I was drawing realistically but everything was just a little bent and exaggerated. Eventually after a few years of this I was able to switch back and forth at will.

Today I might be hard pressed to do a really good portrait. It would certainly take me a long time to do. I have done nothing but cartooning for years now. However back about 8 years ago I went to a live drawing co-op once a week where we did a series of ten minute poses and then one long 2 plus hour pose. I found it did not take long to get some of my realistic drawing skills back. Here are a few of my life drawings/portraits from those co-op sessions (although a few of the quicker figures might have been studies from a book… no way to tell after so long). I know I posted these a few years back but they are the most recent “realistic” work I have!

WARNING: some of these were nude models. CLICK on the images for a closer look.

Q: How do you respond when doing a caricature and you present a preliminary sketch, the client says, “His (Her, My, whatever) nose (ears, chin, whatever) isn’t that big?” In a live party situation, where the drawing presented is a done deal and the host is paying by the hour, I respond with, “Now it is!” But in a studio, commission situation my first impulse is always to ask, “Do you know what a caricature is?” I almost always try in the initial conversation to determine if they know the difference between a portrait and a caricature. Even then I sometime get that irritating question.

A: Drawing caricatures for a living, either live or in a studio, will inevitably lead to this issue at some time or another. Mostly it happens when the subject of your caricature is also the one approving the image. There are two possible reason why this happens:

1. The subject is not being realistic or objective, and refuses to see their likeness even though the caricature captures them well.
2. The caricatures actually does not have a good likeness.

I’ll get to that second one in a moment, for now let’s assume the caricature in question is a good, solid likeness of the subject.

So what do I say to that?

When drawing live I usually respond with a smart aleck comment like “I draws ‘em as I see’s ‘em” or “If you don’t like your nose, don’t blame me, blame your parents!” or some such. If they really protest about it then I give them a refund and move on. I do not bother to try and educate anybody at a theme park about the art of caricature. It’s not worth my time. Nor do I care about their opinion of my work past their being happy with it and buying it. That may sound cynical and materialistic, but that’s just the way it is at the theme parks or in any live venue. Some people never should have sat down in the first place, so why try and convince them to buy something they didn’t want to begin with? If I know I did a good job and they don’t want to buy it, or they don’t like it, that’s their problem. I just move on.

Now, with that said, I am also objective when it comes to the likeness. Nobody’s perfect, and drawing live leaves room for doing a bad drawing or three every once and a while. I know when I’ve done a good job and when I’ve blown it, but you still present them with the drawing either way… not that I treat the customer any differently in either case. I always offer a refund or allow them to decide not to buy it regardless if they are wrong or right about the likeness. Sadly a lot of live caricaturists are NOT objective about their own work, and will instantly blame the subject for “not understanding caricature” when they dislike a drawing done of them. I’ve seen live caricaturists do horrible drawings with zero likeness that get returned by the dissatisfied customer and then hear the artist complain about how that customer just “didn’t get it”. Of course, I’ve also seen some really brilliant caricatures returned in the same manner.

In the studio is another story. I don’t present pencil sketches or work to a client unless I am satisfied with the likeness of a caricature, so just the fact that I am showing them the work means I think the likeness is solid. Like I said before the only time this issue ever comes up is when the subject of the caricature is also the person approving it, because their ego sometimes gets in the way.

Again, what do you say to that person? I know the likeness if there, but if they don’t see it then what? It depends on their comments. If they just say “I don’t think it looks like me”, then maybe you have to take into consideration you are (probably) working from photos and the photo reference might be throwing you off. I would say “This looks like the person in the photos to me, so if you don’t think it looks like you then I will need better photos”. Usually that is useless, but at least you are giving them the benefit of the doubt. 99.9% of the time they don;t see themselves in it because they can’t deal with a caricature of themselves… even a relatively nice one.

I have about a million stories about this kind of thing, starting with my very first freelance job. Here’s another: Just a few years ago I did a holiday card for a local insurance company, with about 30 employees and management in pen and ink. The owner was the father of the two managers, one daughter and one son. I did the pencils and sent it over to them and all the employees loved it but the son and daughter didn’t think it looked anything like them. I tried to make them happy by revising it based on what they THOUGHT they looked like, but what I ended up drawing looked nothing like either of them in the end. I did that for two years but the second time around I had an even worse time with the daughter. The next year the daughter, who was the one coordinating it each year, called me up again and I told her I wasn’t interested. I was not shy about why, either. She seemed fine with that. The next year I got a call from one of the other, non-related managers begging me to come back and do it again as they had gotten another local caricaturist to do it and everyone hated the results. This lady was very nice and promised me I would have no problems with the daughter or son as far as approvals went. I told her I appreciated the kind words but I still wasn’t interested… I think I was busy with other work at the time, and I had no interest in going through that again at any rate.

Actually I have a surefire way to avoid having those kinds of issues: I just don’t accept work where the subject of my caricatures has any say in the approval of the artwork.

That’s nice an easy. No vanity projects with potential issues like… vanity. I am lucky enough to have plenty of work from clients who will pay me to draw caricatures of other people, so I don’t have to accept personal commissions or projects involving caricatures where the subject’s approve their own image. For some caricaturists personal commissions are a big part of their business. To them I would just say try and make the client understand ahead of time that you’re a caricaturist not a portrait artist, make sure they’ve seen your samples and that they know what to expect… but ultimately be prepared to have the occasional problem like this. Unavoidable.

One final thing. If any caricaturists out there get the “why me?” feeling when someone rejects a drawing you feel you really did a good job on, don’t feel too badly. It happens to the very best. When The Lovely Anna managed to convince the great Mort Drucker to draw my caricature, we were told a major reason Mort doesn’t to personal commissions is he runs into this same issue sometimes. In fact, Anna was told that Mort would send a sketch to her for approval but if there was any question about the likeness he would not revise it but instead talk with her about buying a MAD original for me instead. Of course she loved the sketch.

So, if MORT DRUCKER can be told by some idiot that they don’t think his caricature “looks like them”, it isn’t too hard to imagine we mortals having the same problem.

Thanks to Paul McCall for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Q: I worked doing retail caricatures I know that it is hard to hire someone trustworthy and is a good artist. Especially to be a manager at one of your concessions. Here in L.A. we always had someone (even managers) pilfering from the till. Are the artists permitted to display their own samples? Will you ever acknowledge them (not the criminals but the worthy artists) on your blog?

A: I don’t often write about the business side of the retail caricature business here because I don’t think that is a topic that anyone but a very small few might care about or get anything out of. Therefore I have tried to devote this blog to the art side of live caricatures when I address it at all, with perhaps the occasional comment on the business side of it. I will, however, be happy to answer your question(s).

Business is business, and it doesn’t much matter whether your business is selling caricatures, widgets or chicken soup… the challenges of operating a business are almost universal. One of the toughest ones is finding good, reliable people to work with/for you. It’s very hard to find people who are reliable, honest, hard working and who place a high priority on their job. With retail caricatures, you also have to throw in the extra wrinkle of needing to be talented as well, and that’s the hardest part. Any business needs people like that, and they are not easy to find.

Each season we go on a recruiting search in art schools and colleges, via newspaper ads and lately via Craigslist and other online resources to find artists to work with us at my various park operations. We work very hard to put together the best crews we can, because the better the people we have in place the easier the rest of the season goes. I estimate we need to interview at least 4 people for each one opening if we expect to fill it with a decent artist who will do a good job. More than a few times we never got those four to choose from, and that leads to mediocre artists who do mediocre jobs.

You ask about stealing and how to prevent it. Only an owner who is either very naive or very stupid believes no one is stealing anything from their business. There is only three things you can do to deter that from happening, and those things are to pay attention, make stealing as difficult as possible and to deal harshly with anyone who is stealing.

That last one isn’t really prevention in and of itself, but it is still the most effective deterrent. My method is to dismiss thieves instantly and very openly. There are no second chances when it comes to theft. No one can argue they didn’t understand it was wrong, or that they did it by mistake. They just didn’t think they’d get caught. The way I look at it, you are doing them a favor by sending them packing, and embarrassing them in the process if possible. They will get another job and in that way get a second chance, but they might remember that incident and think twice about stealing from their new employer. The other reason for the public dismissal is to send a message to the rest of the people that work with you that you are paying attention and that you have a zero tolerance for that kind of thing.

The other two steps for prevention is to pay attention and to make it hard to steal. These go hand in hand. Ultimately you need to trust the people who work with you, but that doesn’t mean you do it blindly. Most theft occurs when otherwise honest people believe no one is watching and there is no way they will get caught. If they think there IS someone watching that will deter 95% of all theft. Most people logically value their jobs more highly than the extra $20 they might get with sticky fingers. The theme parks make this easy for me, as they have a large loss prevention team and secret shop everybody, us included, as well as watch in plain clothes behind us at random to see they things are rung up properly and the money is handled correctly. I have had a few artists caught doing something naughty and they have suffered the consequences.

Some people might argue that paying people more might deter them from stealing, but that is absolutely false. Paying people more is what gets you (hopefully) more loyalty, harder work, more willingness to put the job higher on the priority list of life… there are a host of benefits to paying your people as much as you can and still have a healthy business. I have always done that. The theme parks take a ridiculously high percentage of the gross sales as rent and I cannot pay as well there as I would like, although despite a constant increase in percentage for the theme parks over the last 12 years I have not reduced the percentage I pay my artists one fraction… I have eaten the reduced profit out of my own pocket instead. However in other venues who take a lesser percentage in rent I pay that extra directly to the artists, keeping my profit margin the same. That hopefully gets me better people who stay with me longer, but it does absolutely nothing to deter theft. People very seldom steal because of NEED. They steal because of WANT, and they will do that no matter how much they are paid. They do it for multiple reasons… it’s amazing how people can justify something like that in their minds.

Good management is the key. I have been offered many other parks to expand into and have turned most down for one main reason… I had no one I felt was a reliable manager ready to take on such an endeavor. When I do find someone with the work ethic, responsibility, organizational skills and ability to handle people that constitute a good manager I actively look for a place to put them, and they are paid accordingly. Good management is essential to any business. I don’t mention them here on the blog because that’s not what this blog if for, but I do have at least one person with these special abilities in place in each of my locations. They either share in the profits if they manage the crew or get a large percentage of their own work in exchange for overseeing the workings of a smaller booth, but they are well compensated and are treated as partners and not as just workers. My current managers are James Hungaski at Valleyfair, Ryan Roe at Six Flags St. Louis, Alex Hughes at Six Flags New England for caricature and tattoos and Rich Carper for airbrush t-shirts, Jim Batts at St. Louis Union Station and Andy Blakeborough at Nickelodoen Universe. I consider myself very lucky to have these guys in place I treat them right.

As to your other question, I encourage all my artists to have their own samples on the display walls. All samples need to be approved of course, but I consider that a necessity. At least one sample should be up for each artist.

Thanks to Michael Garisek for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

I also had a little down time at the theme park on Monday to do two new samples for the display wall. Again, these are based on previous “Sketch o’the Week” drawings and are executed in graphite/freehand airbrush in a manner that is consistent with what customers can expect to see if they get a caricature:

The similar head and body angle is just coincidence. I wouldn’t want to hang these samples next to one another for that reason.

Q: How many of those caricature booth operations do you run? Do you own them yourself or are you acting as contract management with a park or mall (whatever) as the client? How much time do you spend overseeing the artists and/or operations for each setup?

A: The retail caricature business is different depending on where you are set up. Malls have a more traditional retail business model base whereas theme parks work a little differently.

Currently I have five retail caricature operations, three in seasonal theme parks and two year around in malls, although one is actually in a theme park INSIDE a mall. The three theme parks are Valleyfair near Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, Six Flags St. Louis near St. Louis, Missouri, and Six Flags New England between Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut. The two mall locations are at St. Louis Union Station in St. Louis and at Nickelodeon Universe in the Mall of America near Minneapolis/St. Paul. I used to have operations at Underground Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia and Riverplace in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Technically I “own” these businesses and lease the space we use from the property owners. In the case of the malls the arrangement is that of the traditional kiosk business: generally a one year lease with an upfront base rent for each month and a percentage rent of sales after a certain breakpoint. Theme parks work differently as they take no upfront rents but take a much larger percentage of total sales instead, usually also with a one or two year contract.

I have very competent managers in place in each location, and they handle most of the training and all the daily operations. I usually come around and help open up the parks and get everything up and running, and then work with the new artists as well as draw myself. Then I make a visit or two to each out-state location during the summers. I am much more involved with things at the Minnesota locations, and am out there several times a week but mostly just to handle management stuff. I still occasionally draw and will watch and offer advice to the artists as time permits.

In fact I am currently in St. Louis for a short visit to Union Station and Six Flags, returning today. Perhaps tomorrow I will post some pictures.

Thanks to Robert and Margaret Carspecken for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Yesterday I posted this drawing of Michael Cera and mentioned how it was a “cold” drawing… meaning I had one photo reference to work from and no other familiarity with the subject either from seeing him in a film or on TV, or any other forms of reference.

Here’s the photo reference I used:

I got a few comments and some private e-mails asking for more details about what it means to draw “cold” and what makes it different from using multiple references or drawing from a live model. I thought it would make a good topic for a more involved post.

Drawing caricatures from nothing but photo references is tough. Anybody who has ever done it will tell you that photographs lie. Tricks of light, focus, angle, perspective, etc. will provide you with false information about your subject. A given photo will suggest some features are ripe for exaggeration while other photos will tell you something different entirely. Basically it all boils down to this: you are basing your observations of a living, three dimensional subject on a two dimensional reference, and are therefore restricted in your observations to the superficial information that photo imparts. The best caricaturists in the world can do a terrific caricature from a single photo that looks just like the photo, but that doesn’t mean it will be a great caricature of the actual subject.

Take a look at the photo of Cera above. Based on that, I drew his eyes large and close together, exaggerated the width of his face and the roundness of it, gave him a small chin and exaggerated that by making the space between his upper lip and nose larger, and gave him a tiny mouth. I had nothing to go on but this single picture. A few people wrote me saying they had a hard time recognizing him in the sketch without first being told who is was. That does not surprise me.

When I draw caricatures for a job, I get as much photo reference together as I can. In fact, I make up a 13″ x 19″ sheet of pictures of each subject comprised of different angles and expressions that I use as my main reference. Here’s one I used recently of Alec Baldwin for the “30 Rock” parody I did this spring:

Using this kind of collection of photos I can get a much better feel for his features, expressions and personality, and can do more effective and CONSISTENT caricatures of him. There is a big difference between doing a caricature based on the superficial and doing one based on the foundations of a face. Drawing a “superficial caricature” is dependent solely on the exact physical traits of a given reference, and there are lots of potential pitfalls there. The decisions an artist makes with respect to that reference may not apply to the same face from a different angle or with a different expression. The artist may find trying to turn the head in a second drawing requires a different set of decisions to make it work. Each drawing by itself may be effective, but as a pair they are mismatched… they do not read as the same person. However if the artist bases his or her caricature on observations of the underlying foundations of the face… making decisions based on the continuity of the face between multiple angles and viewpoints rather than the superficial nature of a single photo, then the caricature becomes more solid and far more consistent. The artist is caricaturing the person and not the photo.

In the rather unique case of MAD parody work, the consistent part of that equation is crucial. I cannot base my caricatures entirely on one photo or even a series of photos. I have examine the subject as a whole… head shape, feature relationships, posture, etc. and figure out what the foundations are and then exaggerate them (hopefully) consistently. Only in that way does the viewer believe they are looking at the same character in panel after panel, with various viewpoints and expressions. It’s a little like developing an animated character design… you have to be able to draw the character consistently from many angles to make it believable. There’s a lot more room for error in something like a MAD parody, but the concept is similar. Here are a few of the caricatures of Alec Baldwin I did in that 30 Rock parody. While each leans somewhat on a certain photo, none are done dependent on that single reference:

You might notice in certain pictures in the reference page above Baldwin’s forehead looks fairly big, but overall observation showed me he needs a short, wide forehead. His pursed lips became an important part of his caricature when looking at the entire sheet whereas in certain pictures it isn’t as prevalent. Those are just some examples of how individual pictures can deceive you.

Better yet is to see the subject in motion on TV or in a film. That gives you a feel for their real persona. In the case of doing a parody for MAD this is absolutely essential. In the few times I’ve been required to do a parody in advance of a film’s release I have sought out DVDs of films the actors have recently appeared in to help give me the insights that only that kind of source can provide.

That is why drawing live caricatures isn’t drawing “cold”. Of course you do not know the person sitting in front of you so you can only draw quick inferences as to their personalities (although those quick inferences can be surprisingly accurate) but you can see their face in three dimensions. You can see them move and speak and make various expressions as you draw. Your observations as far deeper and more accurate from live than from any single photo reference, or even multiple ones like my reference sheet.

A lot of live caricaturists suffer from “superficial caricature syndrome”, where they rely too much on the surface features and do not pay attention to the underlying foundations when they switch to using references and working from pictures. Several very talented ones I know can do incredible single caricatures of individuals, but when asked to string several together consistently they struggle. That is something that needs a lot of thought and patience to accomplish.

Q: How do you handle artists that you hire/train or added to a multi-caricature artist private/corporate gig that try to steal your clients as they work for you? It’s an ugly part of the party caricature business.

A: One thing I have never done in the “caricature business” is to be an agent for other artists, booking them to do events or “gigs” and then paying them a percentage of the fees collected. I have always preferred the retail approach to caricatures, where I have set locations and times and let my customers come to me rather than the other way around. Still, I have done my fair share of party work (years ago, I don’t personally do parties anymore except under special circumstances) and have worked with and know several caricature artist agents, so I am familiar with the issue you are addressing. There are similar issues involved with using a rep when doing freelance illustration and even within the retail caricature business.

For those who might not understand this problem, it is an ethical issue involving the artists an agent sends to draw for one of their clients for a given event. An unscrupulous artist drawing at this event might approach the client directly at the party and hand them their business card in an attempt to get the client to call them directly next time and cut out the agent… the artist will charge the client less than the agent does but make more because there is no agent percentage involved.

Obviously this is ethically wrong. The agent got the artist this gig, and the client is their client. Further work from that client or stemming from anyone attending the event should go through the agent. As an agent I would provide my artists with agency business cards, complete with a place for the artist to write their name if an interested party at the event wants to inquire about caricatures for some other function, and forbid any personal business cards from being brought to the gig. I would also educate my clients beforehand that the artists working their event represent my agency, and any future events in which they want to utilize the services of any of the artists at their event should be booked through my agency. In the event I find out one of my artists are trying promote their own agendas at one of my events, I would simply never use that artist again. Agents spend time, money and effort marketing to find these clients… that is what their percentage is buying for the artists who work the gigs for them. Some artists don’t understand this. They apparently think clients fall out of the sky and perpetually believe that agents are like pimps taking advantage of their god-given talents. Let the unethical artist spend their own money, take their own time and expend their own energy to market themselves in the future… most will figure out the agents earn their money. Ethics sometimes come into play the other way around as well. I have worked gigs where the client approaches me and asks if they can call me directly next time, attempting to get a cheaper rate. I always refer them to the agency.

In the freelance world their is a similar ethical issue when doing jobs for reps. A rep is an agent for freelance artists, and if a job comes in from a rep then any subsequent jobs from that same client should go through the same rep. I don’t do many rep jobs but I do have two clients that originated through a rep, and these guys often call me directly for new projects. I always refer them back to the rep, which is only fair.

Ethics come into play in any area of life or business. It isn’t very hard to figure out what is right and what is wrong… it’s usually obvious. Go about life doing the right thing in such cases, and I believe you will ultimately be rewarded if in no other way than with a clear conscience. Karma is real… it’s even in the Bible: “Do unto others as you would have other do unto you.”

Thanks to Mr. Happy Go Lucky for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

I’m afraid I have to cop-out again this week and resort to a sketch I did as part of some roughs for a product illustration job. This time it’s the democrats we made some fun of. Sorry about the crop. One of these days the item will be released and I can show all the artwork I did for the project.

“The park formerly known as Camp Snoopy” and “until recently was known as the Park at MOA” officially changed to “Nickelodeon Universe” on Saturday with a grand opening gala. Ashley Simpson was lip syncing on the main stage at noon, several Nick TV stars were on hand to sign autographs, and the new rides and theming were fully unveiled.

Four roller coasters, a flume, Ferris wheel and a dozen
other major rides in “Nick U”. Yes, it’s all indoors…

Our caricature booth, having been previously designed for the “Northwoods Camp” theme of Camp Snoopy, got replaced with a kiosk style cart themed for the new Nick Universe look.

Artist Andy Blakeborough getting his gear set up
for the big Nickelodeon Universe Grand Opening

The view down the walkway from our booth just before the
gates open… that’s Spongebob’s pineapple house as a moon walk for kids.

Bring on the customers!

The entire park was made over from the afore mentioned “Northwoods Camp” theme. I have to say I am impressed with the design and the clever ways they managed to change familiar things and still make it seem like a new place. Images on circular banners surround the massive skylight supports, signage and other graphics are done on arced surfaces in 3-D relief and all the rides that were once Peanuts the are now Nick themed with fiberglass sculpted entrances and characters welcoming you to their ride.

The bad thing was that Nick U required us to set up in a standard designed kiosk rather than allow us to build our own unique booth/location as we had in Camp Snoopy. They have a mall specialty retain mentality there as opposed to a theme park mentality, so they require all lessees to be in their standard kiosk. That would have been a disaster but they recognized that our needs were unique and they actually brought me in to work with the park designers to design a kisok that would work for what we needed first and then make everyone else use our design. That sounded good but there were still a lot of compromises. Still, we have a sharp looking location now and hopefully they will ease up on the peripheral graphics and images to let us make things a little more dynamic in the future.

Some early customers…

Andy and artist James Hungaski are just getting warmed up…

Hopefully we will continue to have the success we’ve had there with what I consider a less impactful presentation than our previous location had. Time will tell.

Underground Atlanta Caricatures Circa 2000

I’m back from Atlanta where I just closed up my long time caricature stand at Underground Atlanta, a downtown retail/tourist complex. As I had mentioned, it was really sad because it was my very first business endeavor and it had been through a lot over the last 18 plus years.

Back in 1989 The Lovely Anna and I, freshly married and she just pregnant, moved to Atlanta from St. Paul, Minnesota because I took a job with Fasen Arts Inc, as manager of their new caricature operation at Six Flags Atlanta. I was 23, just graduated from art school and we were moving 1400 miles away from our nearest relatives, friends and the part of the world we grew up in on this exciting but scary adventure. Having worked as an artist for Fasen Arts at the busy Six Flags Great America in Chicago for the last four summers, I was sure we would do similar business in Atlanta and I would be making good money for what amounted to a summer only job, with lots of time after to develop my freelance clientèle.

It didn’t exactly turn out that way. (more…)