The Klein-Susinno Wedding at the Salish Lodge, Snoqualmie Falls

On Sunday, October 23, 2011, I was pleased to be invited to draw caricatures at the Klein-Susinno Wedding, held at the Salish Lodge,

Snoqualmie, Washington. The lodge sits atop the roaring 268 foot Snoqualmie Falls, and was made famous in the television series Twin Peaks.

I don’t do caricatures nearly as often as I used to. The live wedding paintings pay better, of course, because the couple is getting a work of art that can last for generations. But caricatures are an affordable alternative for the client, and a valuable wedding favor for the guests to take home.

And I truly love doing them. I never tire of drawing or painting faces. I love seeking out the personality of the sitter; it often manifests in a single brush stroke as they flash that smile they were hiding, or as they raise an eyebrow or smirk at the reaction of their friends to my drawing in progress. I love the family resemblances and variations I see, from grandparents to grandchildren. I love the subtle differences unique to every ethnicity (in this case German and Italian) that sits before me. These particular families were full of confident personalities, and I was able to caricature them honestly and playfully without being disrespectful or disparaging.

Of course, throughout the years I’ve drawn many people who were more reserved and anxious about how I might portray them. There are always people who ask me to make them thinner, or omit a double chin, or downsize a nose. At every caricature gig, I find myself repeating, for the nervous, the mantra that I always make the women look like movie stars. I then joke that the men get what they have coming to them. But the truth is I try not to offend anyone. I subscribe to Al Hirschfeld’s philosophy that caricatures never need to be insulting, because everyone has an interesting face.

Voila! Wedding Show, Woodmark Hotel, Yacht Club and Spa, Carillon Point, Kirkland, Washington, March 28, 2010

In one respect, it can be harder to compose a painting at these shows than at a wedding. That is, there’s no client and no prioritized group of people who need to be in the painting. In many trade shows, I end up painting from a booth in a long row of other vendors, and I struggle to find an important focal point to be main visual interest in the picture. Fortunately, this show was divided into several more or less intimate rooms. This one was called the Winter Room, and had a great central display that, pictorially, defines what we were doing there: selling to brides.

I rarely paint service people in commissioned pieces, and if I do, I limit it to one and keep it subdued. But this is a demo painting, and it seemed to me that service is what the business is all about. Having made that decision, I loved the ethnic variation of the workers; the face of an African, an Indonesian.

Painting the harpist was a joy. But had I known there was a string trio coming later, I would have scooted the harpist over to make room to paint them all in.