DANIEL CRAIG N' STEVE McQUEEN ARE THEY RELATED OR AM I JUST A LOUSY CARICATURIST?...(That doesnt require an answer.)

As i'm sure many of you remember being dedicated followers of this font of wisdom that is this Blog, that i had a great deal of difficulty trying at one point getting a likeness of MR BOND!...JAMES BOND, himself ,or CRAIG ...DANIEL CRAIG as he is known in darling 'thesp' circles. I had another go at getting his craggy good looks from my brush to the inkpot to the paper. I think i got a 'likeness', but being the perfectionist you all know me to be it could've been better. I found an old attempt at 'THE COOLER KING' himself a certain mr STEVE McQUEEN, who looks a little like our DANNY. In my defence a few people mentioned how the two do have a similar facial structure, so i will claim that my keen caricaturist eye spotted that . So there they are ,if not brothers ,possibly cousins in caricature.

I've noticed that with the internet it was easy to get pictures of people on the computer and try and use the photographic reference as a template for your caricature. But now i've noticed , in many cases equally, if not bigger files exist of caricature images of the same people. I would say many people are using other peoples caricatures as the reference for their own work. Hopefully this wont cause a 'flattening out ' of styles as people just copy other existing styles and effects. The funny thing is ,if you look at DANIEL CRAIG caricature images ,theres not many that are any good. That made me feel a little better after my struggles.

THE THREE MOST HORRIBLE WORDS FOR ANY CARICATURIST !!

Being a fine upstanding pillock of the community, i find myself being at the behest of the said community , esspecially since the little 'un's old school, with the help of the 'Little 'un' and the Lovely Lynne found out what a wonderfully gifted and talented cartoonist and caricaturist i am. This combined with, apparently me being a wonderful human being who would do anything for anyone???????????..........Well, this got me volunteered by my beloved family to draw hundreds and hundreds of kids at various summer fairs and so such 'do's'. This spread to the scouts functions and general charity functions. Jeez! its hard work being wonderful.

It always started with a telephone call to the lovely Lynne and i would hear the words WORK, CHARITY and FREE...It didn't matter where i was in the house ,or even if i was a mile away walking the dog, i would still hear THOSE words!!!. It meant i was being volunteered again!

The ironical thing is that everybody goes to the lovely Lynne to see if i'll 'do it!'.... Even if i answer the phone they'll ask to speak to the Lovely Lynne. She'll volunteer me ("Of course he'll do it, we're doing nothing that day" ).... After the day is over and the school or scout newsletter, or whatever comes out, there'll be a nice "Thank you"......For the Lovely Lynne for her help.

The other week , the lovely Lynne's sister , the exotic Elaine called and those words that chill any caricaturist to the bone...WORK...CHARITY...FREE...(My ink tinted blood is curdling even as my trembling hands type at this)..... came out as the Lovely Lynne spoke on the phone, i couldn't finish my X-MEN comic ,even. So, a week or so later i was away in the Cheshire countryside freezing me cobblers off drawing at a special needs school......Aaaah maybe i am wonderful..... The words will always have the same affect on me ,but i'll keep on letting the Lovely Lynne volunteer me. I'm still not talking to the exotic Elaine tho', much to her amusement.

HOW MANY CARICATURES ARE THERE ON THE WALL OF THE BOG IN No10 D0WNING ST ???

As i sat with my gallon mug of tea ;Two boiled eggs and very heavily buttered toasted crumpets watching what the rest of the world was up to at this ungodly hour of the morning. I find being shoved out of my nice warm bed by my beloved lovely lady Lynne isn't something i enjoy. I've never been a morning person. Come to that, i've never been an afternoon , evening or night person either. There must be a ten minute period of the day where i'm at my peak.....But it's definitly not the morning ,or this early morning. I'm the only one not going out, but its me getting up to bring them tea n' coffee in bed, if i had the 'bottle' it'd be over the bed ! But, ironically the one thing that eases my misery and foul early morning temper is seeing how bad and miserable the rest of the world is. In maths and physics two negatives make a positive. A positive and a negative form a negative ,so i stay away from cheery programmes and cheerful man and woman double acts on the newsroom settee in the ITV and BBC newsroom until i'm ready and my depression and misery has hit ground zero and bounced back upwards to a level which could be called relatively un-miserable. It was at this point , this morning when i turned the BEEB morning news programme on and they had the wonderful MARTIN ROWSON on talking about being told off for making our beloved leader, Gordon Brown look fat. Martin came out with the best description of our glorious leader when he described his jaw movements as, "Like swallowing a sheep". Nice one Mr Rowson, sir.


It has alway amused me when i watch the politicians, esspecially, look a caricatures of themselves. I don't think i've ever seen one that hasn't grinned broadly with an open mouthed laugh to follow, to show how they can take and appreciate the joke. But this animated appreciation is accompanied by a steely cold glint in their scheming dead fish politicians eyes. Through the years i've caricatured politicians and celebrities, the celebrities are a many and varied lot, but the politicians are a more homogenous lot. They'll tell me how great it is and how i've made them look a little overweight; Use my first name and for a moment or two i think i'm going to be invited to dinner and be friends for life. But that passes, very quickly, and eyecontact which was so intense for a second or two is broken, never to be re-established again.


Even today i meet people who have caricatures i did of them years ago. And, it is true that many of them actually do hang them up on the toilet wall. Now i don't know why, maybe it's a form of artistic criticism, its the place to put it if it's shit. Or, its the opposite , as people spend a lot of time in the 'bog' ,they can sit and shit and admire your mastery of the inky line and almost mystical understanding of the structure and composition of the human face and through this talent and knowledge reveal the true spirit and character that a big head,massive nose ,sticky out ears and smaller, but bloated body can reveal. If the toilet in number 10 has them on the wall. The smallest room would have to be, by far the biggest room. The caricatures would have to be computerised on a wall screen, and while the leader of men is sitting about his buisness the caricature would be of a thumbnail gallery , as on computer websites. Now theres a horrifying thought. Will there ever be a time when people will stop reading books ,papers ,comics and magazines on the 'bog' and sit there with their laptop...Who says technology is a wonerful thing?