Colour or Black and White, Caracatures, Caractures, Charivstures, even charcuturies. My drawings have been called many things through the years and I sometimes wonder if I should have chosen an easier to pronounce profession!
Whatever your mouth chooses to call my caricatures, I do not judge, and I will be there for you, pen at the ready, to make you and your friends laugh and smile.
On a general note, it's GREAT TO BE BACK! I said an involuntary 'Oops!' when I realised I hadn't published one of these pen jones blog posts in SIX MONTHS(!!!). It’s not as though I haven’t been busy, I’ve been continuing as a travelling caricaturist all over Birmingham and beyond, have been having fun at home creating loads of lovely caricature
commissions as gifts, been creating visual minutes for charities and other companies and my most important job; helping look after my amazing toddler.
It’s true that the caricaturist’s remit can sometimes be a broad one and you have to have fingers in multiple pies to earn a crust (mmmm, delicious….), but this year I will be mostly writing about
my work drawing caracatures(sorry, caricatures!) at weddings and parties.
Basically I’m like Janine Melnitz from Ghostbusters, waiting by the phone for you to say ‘Hey, I need an artist to make folks laugh at my wedding/barbecue/party’, to which I will reply, ‘Yes, I’ll be there’
and shout ‘WE GOT ONEEEEE!’ in a Brooklyn accent afterwards.
Annnnnnnnywaaay, to demonstrate that I’m still drawing caricatures at people’s parties(and also that I need a new phone because my camera is terrible), here are a few photos of my recent work
at some recent events in Birmingham. As you can see I’ve thrown a splash of colour in there. This is an option I’m giving clients that want it; they can chose on the night between a classic black and white
line caracature(sorry…caricature) and a caricature with a splash of pop art-false colour. I have fun drawing both styles but I have a teensy bit more fun with the colour!
The first caricature is of a lovely person I drew at a student event at Birmingham University(https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/index.aspx). She went for colour so I gave her already gnarlesome hat some bright yellow! 
Here next are my caracatures(sorry…caricatures) of a group of international students. They were a sweet bunch(even if only two of them went for colour!).
The last photo, although terrible, is one of my psychadelic colour caracatures(sorry…caricatures) drawn at an event in south birmingham and I just loved this guy’s look converted into yellow,
blue and pink so HAD to record it!
IN SUMMARY
So, in summary, it’s fantastic to still be able to do what I do. Even though the pandemic brought events to a halt I was still able to work as a caracature(sorry, last time…caricature!)artist from home and
that enabled me to experiment more as an artist with colour than I had ever done before.
What I’ve now realised however, is that I love to be around PEOPLE and that working as a caricaturist at parties and weddings enables Pen Jones to fully come out of his shell, be silly and
make people laugh.
If you are in need of a caricaturist for an event you’re holding this year, send me a message through my website, and I’d love to be your artist for a few hours, PARTICULARLY if you live in Birmingham
(I love to travel but, you know, getting the bus home is nice too!)
Happy February everyone,
Loads of love,
Pen Jones