10-30-11 A salon party in Golden Gate Park

10-29-11 SURPRISE! a birthday party.

Sabrina emailed me about a surprise birthday party for her Dad. He was happily surprised to find friends, family, and myself awaiting his arrival.

SURPRISE!

I loved this sketch, because you can really see how much fun he was having. His smile was this big during the whole 6 or 7 minutes it took to draw him.

A few more guests....

A great reaction to my drawing.

I drew for this group for about 4 hours. With everyone watching me draw and laughing during the sketches, the time flew by! Before I knew it, I had drawn everyone in attendance. I have a feeling I will be seeing some of these faces again for future parties!

I got this great review from Sabrina:

10-23-11 Smileville Dental Office

The party to celebrate the opening of Smileville Dental Offices turned into an all day event! I managed to draw about 60 people in all.

10-22-11 Second Job of the day, Bar Mitzvah at the Olympic club

Marc Schmid joined me on this job in downtown SF at the beautiful Olympic Club.

Troy and Fiona's wedding, 10-21-11

Back from Montreal, I went back to work drawing in the Bay Area. Lots of events booked this weekend through next week. Holiday parties are booking up December quickly as well, if you are considering hiring an artist please do get in touch!

Commission for a birthday gift

Len commissioned this artwork for his friend Pete, an avid golfer about to turn 70. The whole family worked together to get me the photos I needed and kept in touch throughout the process to make sure they got just what they were looking for. I think Len did an excellent job describing the process in a Yelp review he submitted, which I will post below:

We had a golf buddy with a significant birthday coming up, and a group of us were brainstorming on unique gifts for the typical "guy that has everything." Because we wanted a whimsical golf-related item, yet wanted it to be a memorable keepsake, we settled on a custom caricature of our friend, Pete. Did I mention this was also to be presented at a surprise party? Because we had managed to put ourselves in a bind with a relatively short deadline approaching (the surprise party!), we had to work fast. I did some quick research to find the "best of class" caricature artist in the Bay Area. Looked to me like Jon Casey was our artist, based on his great Yelp reviews. I was also convinced that I needed somebody local, as I figured I would probably need to meet with the artist once or twice, would need to pick up the artwork, etc., all to save time. I contacted Jon and began the process with a combination of excitement and dread of the unknown - could he do what we wanted without meeting Pete? Could he work with our budget? Could he meet our short time line? How much of MY time was this going to take?

Jon was very responsive and professional from the outset, which put me at ease. No waiting days to get a response to questions. He was a very quick study on our vision for the drawing and we quickly worked out all the details on budget and timing, as this was a very unique drawing with, really, several small drawings within the body of the larger main caricature. Jon was always very sensitive to our needs, including getting the drawing finished in time for us to get it printed and framed nicely for the big presentation.

Unbelievably to me, Jon was able to create a "spot-on" caricature of our friend based only on some shared photos, descriptions of his personality, and some very basic directions for our vision of the sketch from myself - a completely non-artistic guy! The process proved to be super easy - all done via email, mailed Jon a couple photos, that was it. He delivered the digital art final product via the web, it printed up beautifully, and then we had it framed. The final artwork looked incredible and it turned out to be exactly the memorable keepsake that we had wanted.

I know that Jon put in more hours than he had planned on our drawing, and it was also clear that he worked some very late nights and juggled other commitments in order to meet our tight schedule. He even allowed us to see a final draft and make some small edits (Jon was clear upfront on the small edits that might be doable vs. any large scale changes that might involve added costs) at the 11th hour without charge. Got to love the digital process! In spite of it all, Jon, always held to the price he had quoted, and he always was genuinely concerned for our project. He wanted to make sure that we were happy and he was very interested to learn how our friend, Pete, reacted to this special gift at the surprise party.

Needless to say, Pete and all of his extended family and friends that were present at the party absolutely loved Jon's custom caricature! It is now hanging in his home study and Pete says it makes him smile everyday when he looks at this very cool sketch.

I would recommend Jon Casey to anyone interested in a high-quality caricature for a gift or any other occassion. I am sure that he would be a great feature at any party or event, as his perceptive nature and warm personality would add to the overall experience. Great product, professional business conduct....you won't be disappointed when choosing Jon as your artist.
-Len Waters

Montreal, October 17-20

I had the opportunity to visit Montreal this past week. I drew for Symantec, a tech company, and was sent by EventToons.com. I only had 2 full days there, one spent drawing from 8am-5pm, the other spent seeing as much of the city as I could.

Here is a photo showing my setup: For trade shows where you have to travel and carry lots of equipment, it's really important to take up as little space (footprint) as possible. I stood while working, and although it was nice to have this counter to work off of, even a small table would have worked just fine.

I was lucky to know an artist there, Diane LaFlamme. Her and Sebastien showed me around town. We had some great all you can eat sushi, went sightseeing, and had drinks in Crescent Street and in Old Montreal.

Here are a few photos from my sightseeing the following day:

 Old montreal. Lots of brick and cobblestone.

There is an artist there who puts on a light show every night. The low cloud cover made it look like ufo's dancing across the sky. You could see this from any point in the town, and since my hotel was nearby, it was really easy to find my way home.

 Views from the tallest tower in Montreal, built for the Olympic games.

The insectarium. I was blown away by the enormous size of some of these bugs, many bigger than my hand!

And finally, a couple views of the Asian Gardens at the Botanical Garden. I absolutely love the Fall Season, which San Francisco does not have. Montreal felt just like being home on the East Coast.

All in all, a wonderful trip! Thanks to EventToons! (you can visit the site to download your drawing if I drew you 10-18-11.)

CardFlick's Launch Party, 10-15-11

CardFlick's team saw me drawing earlier this year at the StartupBus party in San Francisco. Within a few short months the CardFlick's own startup reached fifty thousand users, and they decided to have a party of their own to celebrate!

It's a simple, extremely useful idea : Business cards you can share from your cell phone without any complicated or time consuming applications. I recommend you go to CardFlick and download the app and give it a try, I love it!

the Grove restaurant SF, Ca 10-11-11

It's not often I get booked for traditional, marker on paper jobs. This one was full of good energy and tons of fun! The more I exaggerated the more they loved it. I brought along an additional artist, Salah, and we were asked to stay on later for the last bit of fun. Whenever I have jobs that go this great, I leave looking forward to the next time they will have me. I feel lucky to love my job !