I hate coming back from Hawai’i. It’s not that I hate coming home… by the end of the week I miss my kids, I’m usually bored with sun and surf and ready to get back to business. It’s the trip home that sucks. Any rest I got on vacation is negated by 11 hours of flying and a 4 hour time change loss. I’m more tired right now than when I left for vacation.

But I digress. I wanted to pimp once more for the National Caricaturist Network‘s Mini-Con in St. Louis in March. This Saturday is the deadline to get the guaranteed room rate, and also for the organizers to reach their room booking requirements from the hotel. Therefore if you are thinking about attending, now’s the time.

This is going to be a great show, easily the closest thing to the full NCN convention ever put on in the midwest. I’ll be doing a keynote address including a ton of samples of my work from live caricature to illustration to MAD, detailing a MAD job from beginning to end and other general silliness. There will be a lot of time for questions and answers and I’ll have a large collection of original MAD artwork on display including rough drafts, pencils and preliminary sketches.

On Tuesday I will be doing a 3 hour workshop on inking with dip pen and brush.  We will be drawing and inking a caricature illustration. I’ll be providing the reference materials. The inking supplies and board you can either buy from me for cost ($17.00 total) or bring your own stuff. We’ll be using various techniques in both pen and brush, as well as some wash work.

You do not have to be a caricaturist to get a lot out of this event. I am hoping well see a fair number of cartoonists there as well. The other workshops and seminars will be very educational, including one on digital coloring by world class digital artist Court Jones. We also spend a lot of time just drawing each other and the sheer amount of artwork and the intense creativity is a real energizer.

Please spread the word and if anyone is “on the fence” then take the plunge and come to the St. Louis Mini Con.

Still crazy busy with a deadline for MAD, so today I am just going to post this reminder again about my guest speaker appearance and inking workshop March 2-5th in St. Louis. Today is the last day you can register at a discounted rate for the St. Louis NCN Minicon. You can still register tomorrow and later, but it’ll be more dough and they do have limited capacity.

This will be a lot of fun and full of opportunities to learn with all the seminars and workshops going on. I hope to see you there.

I thought I’d post some additional info and a reminder about the National Caricaturist Network mini convention happening March 2nd through the 5th at the Drury Inn & Suites in St. Louis, MO. The early bird registration fee deal of only $50.00 ends on January 1st, so you have about two weeks to register to save some money.As I previously posted, I will be the main speaker at the event along with a number of other guest speakers and several mini-workshops. I will be doing a powerpoint presentation that will include work from live caricature, illustration and from MAD as well as details about my techniques and process, info about freelancing in general and what it’s like to work for MAD. There will be plenty of time for Q&A.

I’ll also be conducting a workshop on dip pen and brush inking. It will consist of taking the class through the drawing and inking of a caricature illustration from provided photo reference. We’ll work with dip pens and brush, and we might even do some washes. Materials can be purchased on site, but you must specify that you’ll be wanting to do that at the time you register so we can get an accurate count of the number of supplies we need. You can bring your own supplies as well. Here’s the list of supplies we’ll have at the workshop:

• Board: 15″ x 22″ Strathmore 4 ply vellum Bristol
• Ink: Pelikan’s Drawing Ink A
• Nib: Gillott 303 (2)
• Brush: #2 Synthetic Sable Watercolor Brush
• Holder: Universal Acrylic Holder

The cost of materials is $17.00. The workshop is included in your registration fee.

Illustrators Ed Steckley and Court Jones will also be conducting seminars:

• Ed Steckley – The Psychology of Caricature
• Court Jones- Digital Caricature Illustration in PhotoShop

There have also been several mini-workshops added recenty, which will include:

• Chalk and Glove Color Technique – Eve Myles
• Working the Crowd – Buddy Rose
• Guerilla Marketing – Kyle Edgel
• Scratchboard Portraits – Deanna Nash

Of course there will be lots of time for the “competition room”, where participants set up shop and draw each other all day and all night… hanging up the resulting caricatures in their competition spaces. It’s really quite amazing to see all this terrific caricature art all over the walls by the end of the event.

If you are a caricaturist and have not been to one of these official NCN events you owe it to yourself to attend one. It’s quite a learning experience and a serious jolt of creative energy. There is a lot to offer cartoonists and illustrators as well. You DO NOT have to be an NCN member to attend.

After January 1st registration fees will be $60.00. The room rates at the Drury are also quite reasonable. Go to the official St. Louis NCN Chapter website for more details and to sign up.

I hope to see you there!

Several times I’ve mentioned the National Caricaturist Network here on the blog. The NCN is an organization of professional caricaturists from all over the world (even though it’s still called the “National” Caricaturist Network, membership from outside the US has swelled to a sizable proportion). They represent not just live caricaturists from the theme park and party circuit, but illustrators, painters, sculptors, graphic artists… as long as an artist’s work revolves around caricature it’s a welcome fit. There are some seriously talented artists within the NCN, and it’s quite an inspiration to see their work. Here’s an old blog post about how I got involved with the NCN. I was president in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.

The NCN had it’s 16th annual convention and competition Sept. 30th through Oct. 5th in Reno, NV. The convention is a central part of membership. Even though it’s a trek and major time commitment, actually attending one of these conventions can be a truly career changing event. Basically a large group of artists, sometimes as many as 200 or more, gather for the better part of a week, take over a huge ballroom space in some hotel and draw the crap out of each other all hours of the day and night. There is also a guest speaker, usually a well known caricature illustrator who does a keynote address an sometimes a work demo. This year was illustrator Daniel Adel, who’s work is consistently in the major entertainment magazines here in the US. Past years have seen such luminaries as Bruce Blitz, Jack Davis, Sebastian Krüger, John Kascht, C.F. Payne, Roberto Parada, Jan Op De Beeck, Steve Brodner, David Cowles and David O’Keefe. There are also seminars conducted by members on techniques, business and marketing. Mostly, though, it’s all about the caricatures.

Each attending member is a competitor, and is given a sectioned off space of wall in which to post the caricatures they produce that they wish to hang up. The artists work in almost every conceivable medium… from the street artist’s marker and chalk and glove, to airbrush to acrylics and oils to digital to sculpty. Some of the pieces that get hung up are like live caricatures and some are more like full blown illustrations. By the end of the week that ballroom is a cartoon and technicolor explosion of wild caricature art. It is awesome and humbling at the same time. Awesome in it’s inspiration and infusion of creative energy, and humbling being dwarfed by the skills of some outrageous talents. To be sure, there is nothing else like it in the world.

At the end of the convention comes the unfortunate necessity of judging these artists an awarding titles like “Caricaturist of the Year”, and “Best Caricature”, etc. It’s unfortunate only in that these awards can only go to a few, where there are so many that demand some recognition. The top three finishers for “Caricaturist of the Year”, the NCN’s highest honor, are bestowed the “Nosey”, a metal nose statue that comes in gold, silver and bronze. Congratulations to Kage Nakanishi (Golden Nosey), Glenn Ferguson (Silver Nosey) and Marian van de Wiel (Bronze Nosey) for taking home the hardware. This year’s complete list of winners can be found here on the NCN website.

I had to miss the con this year as it was switched in 2006 to early October from it’s traditional winter time, which is a bad time for me for multiple personal and professional reasons. I hope to make it next year. I’d encourage any caricaturists out there who are not members to go to the website and join up. The quarterly magazine alone is worth the modest $55.00 a year membership fee.

The NCN also has the occasional sanctioned “mini-con”, when a chapter puts on a smaller con of their own with a regional flavor. These cons are much smaller and limited to only a certain number of NCN members, but are also open to non-members who want to get a taste of what the NCN is all about and also see some speakers and seminars on the art. Just such a mini-con will be held in St. Louis on March 2nd-5th, 2008. Your’s truly will be the keynote speaker, and I will also be doing a hands on workshop on inking with pen/brush and ink. I will write a post with further information about what you can expect, but if anyone is interested in attending space is limited so don’t put it off.