Live from the St. Louis NCN MiniCon- Day Three

Unless you’ve been to one of these events, it’s really impossible to impart the sheer creative energy and inspiration that you find there. These pictures do not tell the story, but it’s the best I can do.

Imagine a large ballroom full of artists drawing and painting in dozens of different styles and mediums. The walls about the ballroom have taped off sections with numbers above them, and each artist has his or her designated space. Gradually these spaces begin to fill up with caricatures… spanning the spectrum from a typical live, quick draw style to an elaborately rendered illustration. By the end of the event many hundreds of pieces of caricature art adorn the walls depicting the attendees of the convention. Any given artist might find 20 or more different caricatures of him/herself, some done without them even being aware they were being drawn. You my alternately find yourself the subject or a cute and fun drawing or a vicious exaggeration… or anything inbetween. You cannot help but be amazed, inspired and humbled by the talent surrounding you.

This minicon is small by comparison to the main convention that happens in the late fall (this year in Raleigh, NC in November) but it was huge by minicon standards. I would say there were as many attendees here as their was at my first main NCN convention in 1998 in Las Vegas. Gone are the days of everyone doing their live technique and today you see artists experimenting with different mediums and techniques on the fly. I was quite amazed this year at the number of artists with computer setups and Wacom tablets working digitally.

Here are a lot of pictures from yesterday’s finale of the MiniCon and the banquet and awards ceremony. As always it was fun to hang out with so many talented artists.

Court Jones seminar on digital painting

Great one of me by Jeremy Townsend

Award winners! Gold: Angel Contreras, Silver: Roger Hurtado, Bronze: Joe Bluhm