Distorted Vision

Complimentary caricatures for Red Nose Day '09

This Friday 13th March is, as I'm sure you're aware, 'Red Nose Day' and it seems only appropriate that I should spend the day 'Doing Something Funny for Money'.  So, I'd like to offer up to 50 people the opportunity of sponsoring me to draw a complimentary caricature.

This is how it works.  First, go to my Red Nose Day sponsorship page and make a donation (big or small) to Red Nose Day.  Then, choose a photograph of one person who you would like caricatured, scan it into your computer and - on Friday, between 9am and 3pm - email me that photograph (see link to the left) and I will caricature it, in my usual party-style, and I will return the caricature to you by Monday latest (allowing time for scanning).  It's that simple and a win/win situation.  You get a funny caricature and you also donate to a great cause.

This year, the money raised from comic relief will support long-term projects both in the UK and Africa: 

"From helping a child growing up with domestic violence, a dad living with mental health problems or a lonely older person with dementia living down the road in the UK, to supporting orphans and desperately poor communities in Africa - your cash really does make a difference to their lives."

So on behalf of all of them - THANK YOU in advance for your donation to this cause. 

To be one of the first 50 subscribers to get a caricature drawn for Red Nose Day, visit my sponsorship page http://www.myrednoseday.com/davidlewiscartoons.

Wedding Fair at the Landmark Arts Centre

 I'll be appearing today at the Landmark Arts Centre Wedding Fair in Teddington.  I'm looking forward to meeting local brides and grooms whose weddings are taking place no more than 15 minutes drive from my front door!  I've just printed 150 fliers telling the world how amazing I am and I better not read them otherwise I might start believing it.

I'm always amazed that every wedding I go to I appear as a complete novelty to the guests, so it will be good to plant the idea of how a caricaturist works at a wedding - and as I'm next door to the cupcake stand, my daughter has volunteered to come and help.

One of the questions that often comes up in conversations with brides-to-be is what is the best time to have a caricaturist?  I'd normally suggest that the awkward period in between the end of the service and the beginning of the Wedding Breakfast, when everyone's starving and the photographers are taking about an hour and a half, snapping the bridesmaids, is a time when the guests really need a bit of distraction - and the caricatures are a nice ice-breaker.  

Occasionally at weddings, the couple might choose to display the caricatures in a 'Rogue's Gallery', so the guests can have a laugh at each other's pictures.  Or sometimes they are gathered up and collected in an Alternative Wedding Album. 

If there's one thing that would make my life easier at weddings, it would be for the mother-in-laws to wear feathers in their hair, rather than huge hats!