Tutorial: Painting and Drawing on your Child's School Bag, Part 2

Okay, I've had a few people email me so far, and NO, I'm not showing you the original version, the dreaded "Birthday Cake Bag". LOL. Let's just forget it ever happened. Anyway, right before Christmas break, I bought a second DARK BLUE, EVIL, CANVAS BAG from my daughter's preschool. But this time, I had a plan....
I used to do some acrylic painting and still have some of my supplies in an old fishing tackle box. I pulled them all out, a plastic plate for a palette ( you can barely see it here... it's invisible!), and a few paper towels. Oh, and a water cup for the brushes.
I bought this cheap, but really good acrylic paint in a bottle at Michael's Crafts called "Craft Smart". I also bought something called "acrylic medium" to mix in with the paint when using it on cloth. I never even used it though, so save yourself some money.
STEP ONE: Sketching

Penciling out the design. I used a Prismacolor White pencil for this stage. I drew it very lightly, and "pumped it up" in Photoshop for you to see it here. Really, make it VERY light. And keep in mind that it's a rough guide. A word of advice here... don't get intimidated if you're not very artistic. Remember, I draw for a living. Really, whatever you draw, your kid will be happy with. Just because YOU did it. My daughter's "Birthday Cake Bag" description of my first failed school bag decoration attempt just proves that.
STEP TWO: White Base Painting

Since this is a canvas bag, I found on the first go around that it was hard to just draw on. Add to that the fact that it's dark blue, and it was a real challenge to get a marker to show up on it. So, this time I knew I had to have a lighter, smoother base to decorate. That's where the whtie acrylic paint comes in. I painted a few layers of it over my rough sketch, keeping it as smooth and "un- bumpy" as possible.
This is another shot of the white, all finished. It was pretty thick by this point. I have to admit, I'm a bit impatient with waiting for paint to dry ( one reason I haven't done it in awhile), so I did take out a hair dryer to "help things along". If you do that, though, keep it a safe distance from the material. I'm not responsible for the bag catching on fire! LOL

Step Three: Color Base Painting

On this stage, I used my the "Light Flesh Color" paint I also bought at Michael's to cover all the parts of my daughter's head. You'll notice I even painted what will be her hair flesh colored, just to make that area thicker and easier to draw on later. The toughest part was keeping the paint thick but also smooth. Acrylic can get "bumpy" and that makes it harder to draw on.

Obviously I also put in the pink for the heart and the yellow of the flower. I decided on this bag to go ahead and leave a white "halo line" around everything as well, just to make the items on the bag "pop" when you look at them.

To Be Continued...

Tutorial: Drawing and Painting on your Child's School Bag, part 1

Okay, settle back, get a cup of coffee prepare to read a story. A story about me and my adventures in painting a school bag for my daughter. This is the bag in the picture above. It's innocent and unassuming looking, and it comes from a really good preschool my youngest daughter attends. But don't let the looks of the bag fool you...

... it's EVIL!!!! EVIL, I tell you.

See, it's canvas. DARK BLUE canvas. At this school, it's custom for the parents to decorate their child's bags. This usually means the Moms do it. However, since I'm a Dad who's blessed enough to work out of his home as a professional cartoonist, I was assigned to do this task by my lovely wife. I found this out on the first day of school, a Friday. They gave us the bag and said we had the weekend to decorate it. I figured this wouldn't be a problem. That's before I found out the bag was EVIL.

And carnivorous.

It thwarted all my normal attempts to decorate it. It ATE the markers I tried, DEVOURED the paint from the cute spray on bottles I bought, and in a few days SHED the cool little foamy hearts and flowers I applied. Obviously I was dealing with a dark, malevolent, superior alien intelligence.

Finally I just covered the thing with my daughter's name and some swirly, twirly lines, all done in white and shades of pink "puffy paint". My wife, who'd entrusted me with this project, was extremely non-impressed with my results. My three year old called the results her "Birthday Cake Bag", and seemed pleased as could be. Bless her heart.

But I, on the other hand, was devastated. It seemed to me that everyone else's bags were SO much better than mine. They had stuff sewn on, heat transferred, painted, bedazzled... everything. Seriously, there are some talented, "crafty" Moms out there. I was humbled. I found in my internet searches on this subject, that there's not even a lot of good info out there. "Canvas bag drawing", "School bag drawing", "EVIL school bags" ... none of those searches seem to generate satisfactory results. So, hopefully, my next few posts will help other parents who find themselves in this same predicament.

Because for the entire Fall semester, I brooded, I schemed, and I planned my revenge....

To be continued...

Rubel

A fellow caricaturist, Rubel Mujica, sent me a really nice note recently and a cool caricature of me for my collection. In the note he spoke about how much he liked the book I came out with a few years ago, and how much it has helped him.

I'm glad it did, Rubel, and thanks for letting me know! Here's a quick caricature of you, right back at ya!
Keep on toonin', man!

(Here's the photos I used as reference, by the way.)

Interview with a Cartoonist...

A few weeks ago, I got an email request for an interview from David over at "David-Wasting-Paper" blog. David ( he of no last name), runs a really cool blog where he interviews well known cartoonists. I was very honored to be asked. I love the site, and have made it a regular read now.

Here's a snippet of my interview to tease you with:

Cartoonist Survey #33

Keelan Parham is a cartoonist from Florida who specializes in caricatures and comic book illustration. His work has appeared in many forms of media including children’s books, magazines and comic books. A member of the National Cartoonists’ Society, he is the author of “Let’s Toon Caricatures.” Keelan owns his own company, Caricature Connection which provides caricaturing for special events, corporate functions and individuals. Don’t live in the Florida area? Don’t worry, you can fill out the online order form and receive your caricature digitally or in the mail. If you are ever at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom you can stop into one of the Caricature Connections retail locations. Stop by Keelan’s website, his blog and also Caricature Connection.



You'll have to visit David's blog to read the entire interview:
http://david-wasting-paper.blogspot.com/2009/12/cartoonist-survey-33.html

Happy New Year!!!!

Have a great, blessed, busy 2010. May God bless you and yours!

Ho Ho Ho!

From the entire Parham family, here's wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

iPhone Drawing, pt 2

Still working on it. I find the hardest thing to do with the Pogo Sketch pen I'm using is to get a smooth line. But I feel I'm making enough progress with drawing on the iPhone in a short time that I can consider it a viable "digital sketchbook".





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

iPhone sketching....

Been trying to figure out how to sketch on the iPhone. It's a continuing experiment. Still haven't found what I'm looking for ( U2 reference). Best I've done so far is a couple of sketches like this one, with the iPhone called "Layers". I tried Sketchbook Pro on the iPhone too,, a fave program I use on my cintiq. But I didnt' care for anything I drew on it very much. Yes, they were all even worse than THIS one! LOL

BTW, I hate drawing with my finger, so I ordered a Pogo Sketch stylus. Kinda weird to use, but still better than my finger! I'll keep trying...

Dr. Sivana...

Hey, look! It's a Shazam! series! Just doodlin' around with Dr.Sivana today. Ya know... DC Comics... if you want me to draw a Shazam book for you...

The Evil Mr. Mind!!!!

Yep, one of Shazam's arch enemies was an evil genius WORM named Mr. Mind. LOL
Ya gotta love that. This was a quick warm up sketch that I threw some color on, Just playin around...

SHAZAM!!!!!!!

With one mighty word.... SHAZAM!!!!!

I loved the live action version of Captain Marvel as a kid in the early 70s, as goofy as it was. Here's a sketch night tribute to the Big Red Cheese.

Take that, Evil Banks!

Here's a recent job I thought I'd share. Hope ya like!

Getting Sketchy....

Last night, best bud Ted Tucker and I ( http://tuckerarts.blogspot.com/ ) finally got together for a bit of "guy time". We sat around talking, eating, and sketching. Just quick stuff, nothing involved. Brainstorming with a pencil, really. This is one of mine from the night, scanned in and colored in Photoshop.

I love Plastic Man, so I just had to draw him and his pal, Woozy Winks. Hey, that reminds me... go check out one of the blogs I follow, why dontcha? It's all about "Plas"...
http://plasticmanplatitudes.blogspot.com/

Me at ISCA 09

2009 ISCA Awards Ceremony - Part one

I have to get all of those "ums" out of my speech pattern. Ugh! It's always horrible listening to yourself speak. But see, this is proof I was there! Told ya! Thanks for posting this one as well, Brian.

But "Keelam"? "Keelam"????LOL

Oh well, with my name you get used to it!

ISCA Caricature Convention 2009 - Part One

All last week I was in beautiful Sandusky Ohio at the annual ISCA ( International Society of Caricature Artists Convention). I'll try to upload my photos from it just as soon as I get caught up around the studio here. It was a week of fellowship, learning, and generally maligning each other in caricature form. LOL Yeah, let me tell ya, don't EVER go to a caricature convention if you have a vanity issue! My forehead gets bigger, my nose more broken, my lips more "girly looking" each passing year in the drawings I get. I LOVE IT!!! It truly is " Caricature College".

There is a big competition factor to the convention, and a ton of amazing work is produced. Congrats to friends Glenn Ferguson ( overall winner... the "Golden Nosey") and Marlo Meekins ( second place... "Silver Nosey") and all the award winners.

I've competed a few times ( I got fourth overall one year), but haven't done so in five years or so. All that drawing, all that pressure... it just seems too much like my everyday life... like "work", ya know? So I made a firm deicision this year to just go and "hang out". I drew when I wanted, IF I wanted, and who I wanted. With no concern about "competing". So glad I did. It was a much needed "blast". My only regret is that I had many people tell me they wish I HAD competed this year, that they wanted to see more of my work. Thanks for telling me that. To be honest, it made me wish at times that I had drawn more and competed, but overall I feel I made the right decision. Maybe next year...

As it was, I got to spend a week just sleeping in, staying out late, and hanging out with tons of talented artists. I saw many old friends, and made many new ones.

The video here was made by fellow ISCA member Brian Vasilik. Thanks so much for shooting it, Brian. And thanks to good pal Kenny Durkin for alerting me to it's existence. Kenny and Jim "Daddy" Durkin and myself show up at just before the four minute mark, if you're looking for us. If you've never been to an ISCA convention, what are you waiting for? The next one's in Vegas, baby! Viva Las Vegas!

Cute Cute Cute

A draw for a magazine client of mine pretty regularly, where the editor has me draw him in various scenes for his column in the magazine. For this issue, he wanted me to do a piece for them in a "Mary Blair-esque" style. No problem! I LOVE Blair's work. So, I drew him in a "Small World" ride scene, since that ride was inspired by Mary Blair's designs. I love her simple, bold, yet CUTE designs.

LiveDraw: Leany

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Been really busy. Been doing a few "Live Draw" gigs, where the client hires me to draw people "in action", even without them knowing it. Pretty cool. I draw them from any view, side, rear, straight on, whatever... with very little posing. Actually, often with NO posing, like this guy. Total "Hit and Run". I went and gave him his drawing when I was done. This one was done at a convention for Staffing companies. Great group of people who really liked the "Live Draws".

Yeshua

Drew my main man awhile back. Was from an old sketch, but a client contacted me for a bunch of biblical images, so I redid and colored this one. Hmmm... been reading about talits lately ( the scarf ), and now realize I should redo His on this piece. Gotta remember to do that....

Rodney Howard Browne

I went and heard this anointed man of God, Rodney Howard Browne, teach at a local church last Sunday. Rodney is from South Africa and feels that God has sent him to be a missionary TO AMERICA. Tens of Thousands ( hundreds of thousands maybe? ) have come to Christ here and abroad through his ministry. Really inspiring.

This, by the way, is my ballpoint pen caricature of Rodney as he taught. Yeah, drawing in church. LOL. Actually, whether you want to blame it on the ADD one doctor told me I have, or just on my "artist's brain", I pay better attention WHEN I'm drawing. I'm guessing a lot of artists are that way...

Flyleaf - All around me (NEW VIDEO)

Love this song.

Hot off the Wacom: Hiking Couple

Did this job recently for a new client. This is one of a series for various usages, including on their website. The description I had for this illo was that it was just supposed to be a young, twentys-ish guy and girl out hiking.
This was my original sketch. I liked the guy's hair here, but they didn't. Oh well. So, I changed it for them on the final.

Lex Luthor!

When "The Toony Bin" http://toonybin.blogspot.com/ character design challenge site had "MAD Scientist" as their challenge, I HAD to try a toony Lex Luthor. Soon, I'll try to color and post the Superman I did as a companion piece. Hope you like my Lex!

Life Springs 10 Days Baja Mission Trip

Recent Work: Greg Tipton, Ten Days Missions

This is a caricature I did recently for a friend and real inspiration of mine.
Gregg Tipton is the founder and director of Ten Days Missions http://www.tendaysmissions.org/ , the organization we recently went to Baja Mexico with. I wanted to try a colored line technique I've been working on, as well as a bit more layered, watercolor look to the coloring. Hope ya like it!

The newest artist in my house...

There must be something in the water in my house. Here's my youngest daughter a few months ago... before her third birthday this month... with her self portrait. I was amazed when she picked up her "Magna Doodle" and when I asked her what she was drawing, she said "I Draw Me". This is what she produced:

It's even funnier when you realize that up to a few months before this, she really had very little hair. Her hair did look a bit like this, just a spot on top. I was blown away. She draws all the time and her Pre-K teachers have already pegged her as "the artist" in the class. Too cool.

Thundercats!!!

This is just me playing around with a cute, toony version of one of the Thundercats characters for The Toony Bin character design site.

BajaDos, part 3

It's funny, in "real life" I "need" a comfortable chair, and my fancy easel, and my special drawing paper that's just the right size and weight. Well, maybe it's not so funny, ya know? On the mission trip to Baja, I was perfectly content in the BLAZING sun, no shade for miles, sitting on two concrete blocks in the middle of a sandy field, drawing on a sketchbook barely bigger than my hand. And the people loved the drawings, as a bonus.
When you're using your talents for the one who gave them to you, it's incredibly fulfilling.

I told my wife, I've never felt so fulfilled... so confident that I knew I was in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing... in my entire life.

Baja Dos, part 2

Here's a pic of our mission team from our local church, HighPoint Church, here in Orlando Florida. This was taken at the Orlando airport before we flew to San Diego, and then got on a bus to Rosarito Beach in Baja Mexico.
Each morning, we were bussed out again to a small village named Terazzas. We built a church, built a house, fed a vileage full of people, and told people about the love of Christ. This first day, though, all I wanted to do was hide behind my pen and paper!
I drew lots of caricatures of the locals while I was there. Nearly 200 of them, most of them on two different days.

It was cool to use my talents for HE who gave them to me, and to see people's faces light up when they got the drawings. God truly does use the simple things, sometimes...

Global Tribe TV - Former NBA star Keith Tower reports from Mexico

A few weeks ago, my wife and oldest daughter and I went on a mission trip with our church to Baja, Mexico. It was an amazing, life changing event. Here is a quick video posted on YouTube with our pastor, Keith Tower, talking a bit about the trip. At the end, he references me and my family in the story about the guy with the withered hand that was healed on our trip. Praise God! He is alive and is still in the miracle business!

Tarzan!

Growing up back in the 70s, when I wasn't reading comic books, I read the original Tarzan novels. He's always been one of my favorite characters, so awhile back, I thought I'd take a cartoony swing at him in my sketchbook :
The "real" Tarzan was quite different from the Hollywood versions of him, of course. In Burroughs' books, you really got the feel that he was barely controlling the "animal" side of himself. I put the scar over his eye, since I seem to remember that from the books...the scar would appear whenever he'd go into an "animal rage". The closest Hollywood ever got to him, in my opinion, was "Greystoke" (parts of that were dead-on), and, strangely enough, Disney's Tarzan (minus all of the talking, SINGING animals).

In the comics, I kind of liked Kubert's take and Buscema's, but there was a series about ten years ago, that was drawn by Mark Wheatley (don't remember the writer), that had a lot of the true spirit of the ape man.

Oh yeah, and since I'm a child of the 70s, I remember faithfully watching both the reruns of the goldenboy Tarzan of Ron Ely, and the Filmation cartoons. The latter, looking back, were awful. But, I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the yard, reciting the opening, "I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. This is my domain, and I protect those who come here. AHHHOOOAHHHHHH-ahhhh-uhhh-ahhh-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Long live the King of the Jungle!!!

Keelan's Eats: Beefy King

I admit it...one of my favorite things to do is EAT. So, occasionally I will be adding restaurant reviews to this blog. Hope you find it interesting. And, if not, well, hang out a few days and there will be more art again here. Or something. Anyway, my first food entry over here.... the myth, the legend.... BEEFY KING! Is that a cool sign, or what?
Forget Arby's, and all those other pretenders. There is no comparison to Beefy King's roast beef sandwiches.
An Orlando, Florida ( that's where I live ) institution since 1968, this family owned business on Bumby Avenue is tops in my book.
Please.... a great sign, amazing roast beef with tater tots on the side, and an interior that looks like you've stepped back in time to the Brady Bunch era... what's NOT to love?

Long live the King!

Recent Work

This is one of a group of illustrations I did for a good client of mine. Since over the years I've done so many gift caricatures, whether they're of single people or huge groups for corporate clients, it's fun to do this kind of thing. My guidelines were " Two young hip people, one guy and one girl, using lots of tech.... laptops, blackberry, cellphone, ipod, etc. At large conference table." It's on their website, and in some printed materials for them, so in order to have a lot of flexibility with the images, they requested I leave plenty of open space around the characters, with no real background behind them.

I'm actually getting a lot more of this type of project where I can do my character design/cartoon illustration style, and I like it. I'll try to post some other recent examples as well.

The Toony Bin: Cereal Mascots

The Toony Bin's character design challenge this week was for Cereal Mascots. I figured most people would do Toucan Sam, Snap Crackle and Pop, Tony the Tiger, stuff like that. So, I found a site that has tons of cereal mascots on it as a reference. I saw these two characters, Klondike Pete and his donkey, Thorndike, from a cereal I barely remember called Crunchy Nuggets. The original illos of them were pretty great, actually. I don't think I improved on them one bit! LOL
Really, I just thought they looked fun to draw, and wanted to play around with a couple of new Photoshop brushes for the coloring. I think there's some interesting things I learned with the brushes, but I have a long way to go with them before I do a convincing watercolor look. Actually, this looks a good bit like colored markers now that I look at it. Anyway...

Crissman Quads

From the files....

About two years ago, I had a good client of mine contact me. She wanted me to do some artwork for some friends of hers. A young couple, they'd just found out that they were having QUADRUPLETS. Naturally, I might add...no fertility drugs involved. That's EXTREMELY rare.

Their friends and family wanted to start a website where people could make donations to help out financially if they wanted, but mainly just so that people could follow the quads' development.

I was glad to help out, and did the above drawing for them.

http://thecrissmanquads.blogspot.com/

Keelan Eats... Boy, does he!

Awhile back, a dear friend of mine encouraged me to keep this particular blog all business, for fans of my art, and to keep personal stuff, well, personal. I agreed in theory, and started a few other blogs for those who want to read more personal ramblings. One of those is my workout blog "Keelan's BodyShop" and the newest is, "Keelan Eats". On this one, I plan to put in restaurant reviews from all over the world, from mine and my family's travels. ( BTW, if you've eaten with me before at cool places and want to send me some photos of those restaurants so I can post them, I'd really like that.. I hate to miss out on mentioning places I've already been to).

Anyway, I've always appreciated reading restaurants reviews so I don't have to try things "blindly", and my family and I eat out so often, that me writing my own restaurant review blog was probably inevitable.

If you're interested, give it a visit. Hope you find it entertaining and useful!
http://keelaneats.blogspot.com/

Let's TOON Caricatures! : New Look

Yep, times are a-changin', and so is my Let's TOON CARICATURES book. I am coming DANGEROUSLY close to the end of our second printing of this title, and I am shopping it around to some new printers to do our third. Someday, I am going to update the entire book and bring it closer to how I actually draw these days ( I drew some of the material in the book a DECADE ago). But for now, I am just updating the cover (and maybe a page here or there... we'll see). With a new kid, a new dog, and an ever evolving drawing style, I had to do SOMETHING.



In contrast, here's the original (current) cover. I don't want people to think it's a totally revamped version of the book, so I wanted to stay in the same basic style and look of the original image. That was a bit of a challenge, to meld my current style with that of a decade ago. I think it worked pretty well, though. It DOES make me look forward to a totally new version in the future. One of these days....

The book continues to surprise me, training artists around the world for over six years , and it's sales are actually stronger than ever ( thanks to a combination of Amazon.com, our websites, and our retail stands).

Here's to the future... the new cover is just the first step!

Harley Quinn

A good buddy of mine ( hey, Loco! ), mentioned he'd like to see my take on the Harley Quinn character from Batman Animated. Since I've been playing around with teh trial version of Sketchbook Pro 2010, I decided to sketch her for him in that program. Finishes and letters were done in Photoshop, by the way.