Recent Work: Floyd Scholz

 This is a recent commission I liked, and I thought I'd share it here. I had a blast drawing it in more of an illustrative cartoony, almost "MAD" style, with a few in-jokes, or "Chicken Fat" thrown in for good measure. I'd like to do more like this in the future. When I revamp my studio website, this style will be well represented there, I think. I've already done another piece like this since  finishing this one, that I'll try to get around to showing here soon.

The subject of this caricature is a friend of mine, Floyd Scholz. It was commissioned by a mutual friend as a gift for Floyd. Being friends with Floyd, I know a few things about him, and I also know his personality ( he's a really great, friendly guy ), so that made doing this caricature even easier and more fun.

Back in the late 70s, Floyd was an amazing athlete.  He even qualified to be part of the Olympic High Jumping Team for the 1980 USA Olympic Team. Yes, 1980. The year the US boycotted the Olympics. Ugh. Thus ended Floyd's athletic career. So, he started carving.... birds. INCREDIBLE carvings of birds. He's now famous for doing this, in those circles, and written several books on the art, such as the one above. 

And trust me, it IS an art.  I've been to one of Floyd's studios, here in town ( the other is at his Vermont home), and seen some of these carvings. They are huge in scale, and you can not conceive that they are not real birds, just from wood. And all one block of wood, too... one giant piece.

Every last detail is perfect. Even down to the FEEL of the feathers... you'd swear they're real feathers, not wood.

Now, Floyd stays busy with this... his waiting list is a couple of years long at this point. Oh, and the price tag for something like that large Eagle above? How about A HALF MILLION DOLLARS?  Yep. You read that correctly.

I'm obviously in the wrong business.