Finish on the energetic Martin Short

The energetic Martin Short

After doing John Berry, I have a quick turn-around to get Martin Short done (We go to press with the Sunday features section way early. So I did the roughs for this on Thursday morning with the finish later that afternoon.)
Martin performs live at the Keith-Albee next Friday (Feb 15) as part of the Marshall Artists Series.
The thing about Martin Short is he doesn’t seem to change — either in his youthful appearance to his full-tilt energy. He makes reference in the story that his comedy is like a party in his living room where he jumps atop a piano and entertains. (See first rough - which obviously I do on any scratch piece of paper as you can see the bleed-though on the back of a printout.)
The dancing atop the piano is the visual and sense of energy that I want to convey in this piece. Again Martin’s face is paramount, and all the rest will be secondary. That being said, I do a quick rough of the piano and the dancing body and will spend more time on the face. The second rough is a more flushed out piano as there is less I can fudge on that than the body.

Finish on the "Crooning Cupid"

John Berry’s sings for Valentines

This week’s ET cover is on several things couples can do this weekend in advance of Valentine’s Day. The great face of country singer John Berry served as my inspiration for a caricature as he brings his special brand of music to the Paramount Arts Center. He has a very sturdy and horizontal look with the hooded eyes and prominent jawline — almost like a lion.
As in all caricatures, the emphasis in the composition is the face and the rest of the body needs to flow from that point. Berry as Cupid gives me a great opportunity to exercise a little self-censorship. (Har Har!) And rather than the standard bow and arrow, I plan to have him pulling arrow from the E-string of his Fender Strat — more fitting to his special offerings and compositionally interesting. Headlines and copy should fall cleanly into the empty space below his knees.
Stay tuned.
Oh, also, quickly on the heels of this project, I’ll be putting together a caricature for Sunday’s Life page on comedian Martin Short. So I’ll need to get crackin’.