Reply to Abby, budding Caricature Artist

I had art classes in college, but they didn't really teach me how to draw...I hardly ever sketched on a regular basis until I started doing caricatures, and I was over 30 and very bad at it ...I still don't get the image on the paper the way I want it...some days I just want to put the pictures on the bottom of Jazz's bird cage....but I figure you have to draw 1000 heads, before you get a couple that you can look at and say, wow, that one really looks pretty good...so my to answer your question "How Long does it take to get good"  is... it depends.   How quickly can you draw 999 different heads , cuz that 1000  picture might surprise you..it really isn't about how long, how many years etc..., it's about how many...Just don't worry about it, and have fun doodling, and drawing wherever you are...

I should try and find some of my early pictures. Then you might be encouraged to see that you probably draw as "good" as me   

Kyle

Red Hat Ladies and Garden Pot

Last night I had the privilege of drawing in a beautiful english "secret garden".  Beautiful as the story told, with trellises hidden beneath green draperies splashed thickly with fragrant white roses.   Above the soothing bubbling of a water pond drifted the cheerful chatter of Red Hat ladies. Their Purples and Reds graced the garden like another species of delicate flora.  

My client is a memorable elderly character, fun to draw, exhuberant, whose bursts of laughter carried the party, whose kind patronage has moved her from my "client" list to my "friend" list. (Which makes it hard to charge her!)  One on one her stories are peppered with cursing - a surprise coming from a petite red-head who has enjoyed a singular stature in the community.  It was her hands that had tended this stunning garden, and I was amused and startled to see peeking above the purple ribbons of a red bonnet a distinctive five leaved plant looking suspiciously like an illegal drug thriving in a bin of rich black soil.  My mind ...surely not here... in the open for all these proper matrons of the red hat society to see! My client has led a colorful life, with discretion I had thought and later after the ladies were safely away, her response to my query was classic, perhaps a joke? perhaps not? I'm still not sure.  "Why Kyle", she exclaimed, THAT is Cleome,  I keep the other in the greenhouse of course! 

I didn't pursue the matter further...except to post my new found information here...

I love my job. 

Cleome