A recent job for a CD cover I did. The song is by the group “Recess!”, and is about… well, allergies. Food alleriges, especially. This group, from what I understand, performs at schools. Just a cute, fun little illustration of cute kids. I could do this kind of thing all day long….
Pull out your smart phones and see what this says….
“Forsaken”, acrylic on canvas, copyright 2011 Keelan Parham
“Eloi Eloi, lamasabacthani”…. “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? ” Those have always been some of the saddest, most powerful words in the entire Bible to me. God promises to never leave us nor forsake us, but He DID forsake His only begotten son, the earthly incarnation of Himself. And it was all so WE could come back to Him, our sins paid for. This piece haunts me as I look at it. It depicts Jesus on the cross, at the exact moment God turned His back on Him.
I am SO glad I will never know what that feels like…
I’ve always harbored a secret desire to just be a painter. So, occasionally I will indulge myself and paint something.
I love Picasso, cubism, Covarrubbias, Braque, lots of abstract stuff, so that’s what I like to paint. Here’s a recent one I did. I am doing a series of Biblical paintings, and this is the first. I call it “Tempted”. It’s of Adam and Eve in the Garden, kissing. Except that Eve is looking off at the Forbidden Fruit.
|
Okay, look, the Parhams are artists. We don’t even really tolerate Sports in my house, as strange as that may seem to most people on planet Earth. So when my daughters’ school, The First Academy, sends out booster fund letters, and try out schedules for the various sports teams, I just groan. TFA happens to be really good at sports in it’s division, and I’m proud of the student athletes I know, but still… it’s sports. Ugh. However, an interesting thing has been happening at TFA the last couple of years… more and more graduating seniors are going on to further education in… wait for it.. the ARTS. Woo hoo! Something like 28% of them last year! NOW we’re talking! So, last year I decided to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and start helping out in the Arts a bit at TFA. I became a substitute art teacher.
Hey, I’m a likeness based cartoonist ( aka caricaturist), so OF COURSE I had to draw some of my students!
And we’ll end on this guy… I grabbed a large pad of paper and sketched Kyle my first day subbing. I had noticed he was a talented cartoonist in his own right, so I felt I just had to draw him. Little did I know that a few months later he and another TFAer would start working with my company, drawing caricatures at Disney.
The school year at TFA is just beginning again, and I look forward to teaching and inspiring there some more this year…
Awhile back, I posted a caricature of a friend of mine, Jeff Bigby, drawn him in my new, more illustrative caricature style. I just came across one of my reference photos for the drawing, and thought I’d share it here with the finished piece as well.
“Charactertures”. LOL. As a professional caricature artist and a pretty good speller, I find it funny that the actual spelling of “Caricatures” is a challenge for so many people. I can’t even begin to tell you how many bad attempts I’ve seen at spelling, and SAYING this word. For this new feature of my blog, I decided to borrow one of my “favorite” versions: “Charactertures”. This version is close to the word “Character”, and I think it’s what people mean. They think I’m going to make them into a “character” when I draw their “Caricature”. Actually, they’re kind of right, since I do lean toward a more cartoony representation of people in my work, and not gross exaggeration. Anyway, I am going to be using “Charactertures” to term my drawings of other companies’/artists’ “characters” on this blog.
See, I had this thought the other day… my life has been so busy for the last fifteen years with just caricatures, and providing for my family through caricaturing, that there are hundreds…probably thousands…. of characters I’ll never have the chance to draw “professionally”. Like Superman and Spiderman… I always wanted to draw for the “big two” comic companies. But now, I don’t know that I’ll ever get that chance. And to be truthful, I don’t even have the desire to do it as much as I once did. But I do still like to sketch characters like them when I have a chance. So, I thought I’d just MAKE myself have the chance. I’m going to set out to draw a “Characterture” of each and every character I can think of ( with my own twist on them of course ), and share them here on my blog. If there’s one you’d like to see me draw, let me know, by the way. Some of these may be just sketches, some more finished. Either way, I’m gonna have fun drawing them and hopefully someone out there will like them.
For this first “Charactertures”, I actually chose a character that’s not even a particular favorite of mine: Sponge Bob Square Pants! Truthfully, I don’t know why I drew him… he just came out of my pen the other day as I was working on another job. LOL For the record, the art on SB has always bothered me a bit, but I do like the voices and the writing. Anyway, this is my quick take on the famous water retaining character.
Stay tuned for more…
Yep, after a few years of being absent from the Mother of all Geek Gatherings, I am returning to the San Diego ComiCon next week. This time, with my oldest, Brady, as my partner in crime. Where will be in the sea of comic geeks, sci- fi freaks, and costumed… um…people? I have NO idea. It’s been so long since I’ve been to SDCC, I had to “prove” my professional status again. I did, and they did. Approve me, that is. HOWEVER, I was out of town when I got the email, about to board a plane home. I joke you not… by the time I touched down in sunny Florida, they were no longer accepting any more professional registrations. Arrgh. General admission, which I would’ve gladly paid at this point, had been sold out since early this year. That’s how crazy it is to get into this show.
Well, fear not… with some help from a few friends in high places, I DID get me and Brady Ann in to the show. Plus, we waited so long to book a room, we got a sweet room in a hotel ADJACENT to the convention center. ( Finding a room was a challenge in and of itself.)
Now, back to where you may see us, if you are there, and care to do so…. Good friends Tom Richmond, Stephen Silver, and Joe Bluhm will all be there with tables, as will the National Cartoonists Society ( NCS). I am sure we will be at least in the vicinity of all of those tables sometime over the weekend. Keep an eye out for us, and you may just see us….
Keelan Parham.com 