Caricature Artist Pen Jones, is my superhero pseudonym. No, I do not stop runaway trains, defeat evil overlords or even save Alsatians from burning buildings, but I have a humble superpower, being able to caricature for quite a few hours in a row. This week’s blogpost is about my last gig in Chester, when I was asked to caricature for about 9 hours! Read on to find out whether my wrists fell off or not…
Caricaturist in Chester
Chester! It’s bloomin’ lovely ain’t it? All of this ancient roman business, a river, and nicely placed between Liverpool and Wales. What’s not to like?
I was going to get to know the place, or at least a building within it, rather well on Friday, because I had been hired to attend a lovely couple’s wedding reception for a whopping 9 HOURS!
Granted, I did get a dinner break, but as I was leaving Birmingham on the train I was slightly worried about my poor caricaturist’s wrists!
A caricature artist must be willing to take on a challenge so I gladly accepted the gig, got in my smart gear and got my heaving pile of paper and pens ready.
Caricature Artist in ‘The Zone’
The Wedding reception was being held at an absolutely gorgeous Georgian place near the River Dee in Chester called the Old Palace (https://oldpalacechester.co.uk/) and the staff couldn’t have
been lovelier (as an aside, I’m even drawing a caricature commission for one member of staff as we speak!). I also hit it off with the wedding band, twin brothers the Ashmore Brothers Band
(https://ashmorebrothersband.co.uk/), lovely as heck midlands blokes, before I settled in to caricaturist mode and drew the wedding couple, plus their black Labrador, the star of the show of course!
Caricaturist Questions
A caricature artist gets asked a lot of the same questions, this is a cast iron fact of the biz. Often the first question someone will ask a caricaturist is, ‘How did you get into this?’
They will say it with such baffled curiosity, so I spin my yarn…
‘Well, I was at a loose end in the summer break from working as a Teaching Assistant and needed a get rich quick scheme! I had seen caricaturists ply their trade in central London so I thought,
‘I’m gonna give it a go’. I made a sign, and soon I was the Hungerford foot bridge’s occasional Caricature Artist. It was like the art version of fishing really, but one day, as I was packing up, a woman asked
me ‘Do you caricature at weddings?’ Cheekily, I of course said yes, and the rest is history, twelve years on, here I am…’
I don’t mind repeating it, because I know that so many people are mystified by art and artists, that elucidating the life of a caricature artist for them is a-okay for me.
The other question I get, particularly at long gigs like this one, is ‘Doesn’t your hand hurt after a while?’
Well, weirdly, it doesn’t, but my posture not always being ideal, my back does sometimes start to hurt. By the end of this night for example, I felt like I had slept the night in a drawer!
Caricature Chat-ariture
One of the main reasons I’ve stayed being a caricature artist for so long is I get to draw but I ALSO get to chat nonsense with people I don’t know all night, and that is something I love!
I hit it off with loads of people at this reception, it was a great bunch, but the ladies below were particularly fun to caricature.
The lady on the left I told was the spitting image of Susan Sarandon, and unbelievably she had never heard of her! I showed her a pic though and she was pleased!
As I drew my caricature of the middle lady she informed me she was originally from Woodford Green, a place I spent most of my life, and so we Essexed off for a bit!
Here they are with their caricature…
Caricature Artist ensures 100% satisfaction
I got to the end of the night happy in the knowledge that I had drawn wat must have been about 80 people and that those people were satisfied, many elated and delighted.
Here below is the review the wedding couple gave me for my services;
“Ben was absolutely fantastic drawing at our wedding. He went out of his way to make sure all of our guests got a drawing and we couldn’t sing his praises enough!
Some of our guests even took his card for future events and parties. Will definitely book him again.”
I was delighted to read this, because a caricature artist knows he done good when the couple are thinking of booking him again!
Back to Birmingham
It’s lovely to go all over the country and meet new people. Why, just at this gig I met people from Chester, Scarborough, Wrexham and more.
I even met a couple who live in Birmingham, in the tallest building, the Radisson Blu. What I’m tryin to say though is, as great as it is to travel, it makes coming home all the sweeter, and I always say to myself as I come into New Street station on the train, ‘Birmingham, I missed you!’.
Cheers all,
Ben ‘Pen’ Jones
https://penjones.co.uk/booking-enquiries/