Keisuke Honda drawing

My latest contest drawing is of Japanese soccer superstar Keisuke Honda. He's one of the key players on the Japanese national soccer team and a very popular figure in sports media.
The team slogan for the national soccer team is "Samurai Blue." For that reason I wanted to do a blue themed drawing of him. I first made the base drawing with gray markers and then added the coloring on top with artstix. He also has brightly colored hair so I wanted to emphasize that aspect as well. I tried to make the background very sporty looking simulating the designing of sport logos.

Brian and Beau come to Japan!

Last month world renown American caricature artists Brian Oakes and Beau Hafford came to Japan to visit our wonderful country. The spent time seeing the sights around the Tokyo area and held a seminar at Caricature Japan's Caricature Festa.

During their busy visit, they took the time to give a special drawing demonstration to some of the artists from our company. They explained the drawing techniques they learned from their company in America. The focused on the quick sketch without doing a pre sketch.
Not only did we learn some new techniques, we also had a fun time watching them draw and getting to share with them our caricature experiences.

Brian did this drawing of me with a sea turtle. Since he works at Sea World in America, his drawings of customers with sea creatures has always been a great source of inspiration not only for myself, but for all the members of our company. Thank you Brian and Beau for taking the time from you busy vacation to draw for us!

Franz Kline

Recently, I made this drawing for practice of American artist Franz Kline. He was part of the Abstract Expressionist movement during the 40s and 50s. Along with Jackson Pollock he was considered an "action painter." The famous quote from him that I really like was "spontaneity is practiced".
This drawing is basically more of a portrait style sketch, I guess. I did it kind of quickly so the parts aren't accurate enough, but the main focus of this drawing was to practice using my gray markers. Comparing it to the original, the shadow areas in the face could be a bit darker.

This is one of Franz Kline's paintings. Even though he was an Abstract Expressionist, a lot of his works are relatively nonobjective.

Salvador Dali

Here's a studio work I did of world famous Spanish artist Salvador Dali.

I drew from this very famous picture of him. It was nice to work from since it was in black and white, and had strong values. Also, I got to improvise the colors as I liked.I incorporated some elements from his paintings to add to the surreal feeling of his personality.

Gift drawing

My client for this gift wanted a drawing of her parents. She especially wanted to include the rice field and forest which is in front of their house

Happy Halloween!!

One of my favorite holidays is rapidly approaching. Halloween! I especially like this time of year because I get to draw bats, jack-o-lanterns, witches, black cats, skeletons, vampires, ghosts, spiders and all other creepy crawly things. It's even more fun when you can do it with your favorite sea creature!

Contest drawing

This is my most recent contest drawing of Nicolas Cage. I was working with the colored markers again and using artstix and colored pencils. I used a computer to generate the background. The sketching stage could have used a little more work. After the first several sketches I did, I kind of had something I liked but after the finished product was done I could see areas that I would have liked to go back to and change.

Sumo wrestler

This studio drawing is of Japanese sumo wrestler Hakuhou. I used the mixed materials of marker, color pencil and photoshop.

A Few Quick ones

The family that plays together, stays together...

Couples...

七夕！ Tanabata!

On July 7th is the Japanese festival of Tanabata. It's the legendary story of a man and woman who fell in love but were separated by fate. Now the only time they can meet is on July 7th, but only if the milky way can be seen. This sumertime festival is celebrated in Japan with many colorful decorations and fun festivals.

To learn more about Tanabata, click on the following wikipedia link....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata

Harrison Ford drawing

Here's a drawing I did recently of American actor Harrison Ford. I made it with color pencil, artstix and a bit of pastels. There are some things about it that could use some touching up but not too bad. I'm trying to focus on more portrait style drawings.

Aquarium live sketch

Here are a few more live sketches from the aquarium...

We don't get many requests for polar bears, but they're always fun to draw...

This was a drawing for Father's Day...

Splashing about with a pretty dolphin...

６月の早割サービス。 June Early Bird Service

Caricature Japan will be continuing it's Early Bird Service during the month of June. From the hours of 11:00 until 12:00 you can get a "with sea creature" drawing for the "face only" drawing price.

Miki's Exhibit

Recently I went to the exhibit of Japanese caricature artist Miki. Her show was held at the Gallery Motomachi near Chinatown in Yokohama.

As expected, she had an exceptional display of graphic design style caricatures. She certainly has been perfecting her technique and her body of work is very inspiring.

The drawing I liked the most from her exhibit was the one of Tiger Woods. I think with this one she really stretched beyond her usual design style and it has a strong feeling of modern art.

Here's a bit of her profile for the Japanese readers.

Please visit her homepage to get updated on more of her works and happenings.

http://www.boo-bana.com/

School Tour Ship

On the 6th of June, Kage will be holding a drawing seimar for grade schoolers as part of the Riso education group （リソー教育グループ） School Tour Ship program.


Go to the following link for more information (日本語です)...

http://www.s-tourship.com/blog/program/2010/04/20100415103604.html

Frank Frazetta 1928 - 2010

Last week on May 10th 2010, legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta passed away. Without a doubt, his work influenced generations of artists all over the world. Rest in peace Frank.
http://www.frankfrazetta.net/

Live Sketch

Hello. Golden Week is over and I’d like to thank all the customers I drew and all the artists I worked with for the fun time.

I have some new live sketches here. Sorry it’s been a while. Recently it has been suggested to me to update my style, so I’ve been looking for things to do differently. I’ve bee working with the artstix again and trying to use them more in my drawings. I still have to be careful of overworking my hands so I’ve started doing more drawings where the face is colored with the artstix and then the large filler area like the hair and background I do with the softer crayons. Fortunately, the hot summer weather is just around the corner, so that should make the artstix much easier to work with.

I’m sure all of these drawings will be instantly recognizable as mine, but I’ve also been studying the work of other artists for inspiration. During the busy times it’s easier to do what feels natural too keep the speed up, but I’d like to try to focus on getting in a different frame of mind to come up with some new stuff.

I guess that was a lot of art talk, but I hope all of you non artists out there enjoy the fun time animal drawings. :0)