I draw the one thing your face is already doing
Key drawing
Range
One face, six settings
A commissioned face has to hold while it moves. This is the sheet I work from before a single line of the final drawing goes down.
A likeness that only sits still is half a likeness. So after the front view, the second thing I draw for any sitter is the range - six passes, same head, no reference between them. The one you end up keeping is almost never the polite one.
The one people ask for, and the one that lies the most.
Where the eyebrows tell you who she actually is.
Nothing symmetrical survives this, which is the point.
The mouth goes quiet and the whole face narrows.
Everything travels up: brows, lids, hairline, shoulders.
The hardest of the six. Push nothing and it still has to read.
Sitter: Adaeze O. · six passes, one afternoon
Selected work
Heads on file
Six off the last sheet. Every drawing gets a number when it leaves the studio, which is how I find it again three years later when somebody writes asking for a print.
Method
The likeness key
Every face hands you one thing. The job is finding it, pushing it, and leaving the rest of the head where you found it.
A caricature is a measurement before it is a joke. I read the whole head first, then push only the two or three features that are actually carrying the likeness - and each one only as far as the next one will still allow. Push everything and you get a stranger with a big nose.
Brow line
Where most of a likeness actually lives. Move the brow and the whole mood moves with it.
Nose
Everyone expects the nose, so I under-push it. It reads harder when it is nearly honest.
Jaw and chin
The one I push hardest. Silhouette first - get the outline right and you can be wrong inside it.
Smile
Widen it and the person disappears. I lengthen it instead, by about one tooth.
Hairline
Not the hair. The line it cuts against the forehead - that is the part people recognize.
The percentages are my own shorthand, measured against the sitter in front of me and against nobody else. No client has ever seen them.
Craft
One drawing, four passes
The same head at every stage of a single commission. Nothing here is redrawn - it is one sheet, photographed four times, and the likeness is settled before any ink touches it.
How it runs
Ten days, four stops
Studio commissions run on the same four stages every time. Live drawing skips all of them: you book a date and I turn up with a board.
Commissions
Four kinds of job
Every commission is quoted the same way: what you get, what it costs and how long it takes. If yours is none of these, describe it in a paragraph and I will price it.
Editorial caricature
For a column, a cover, a review or a feature. I read the piece before I draw anything, because the drawing has to argue the same thing the words do.
- Two pencil roughs before any ink
- Print and web files at 600dpi
- Named license, one year, one territory
- Changes on the rough, never on the ink
Live drawing
Me, a board, a stool and a stack of paper, at your event. Everybody who sits down leaves holding theirs.
- Six to eight heads an hour
- Sleeves, a sign and a queue that runs itself
- Travel anywhere in Louisiana included
- Two hour minimum, one booking a weekend
Gift portraits
Drawn from photographs, or from a video call if the sitter is willing. One person, a couple, or a household of nine.
- Two roughs, one revision after inking
- Ink and gouache on Fabriano 200gsm
- The original in the mail, framed on request
- A scan you can print again yourself
Character design
A face somebody else has to be able to draw again next week, from any angle, without calling me.
- Turnaround sheet, four angles
- Expression sheet, six moods
- Written rules for whoever animates it
- Source files and a one page usage sheet
Live
Two minutes a head, in front of you
Six heads off three different nights. At an event the sitter watches your hand the whole time, which is the fastest way I know to find out which line was wrong.
Rates
The rate card
Two things set the price: how many heads are on the sheet, and what the drawing is going to do once it leaves here. Everything else is on the card.
These are the figures I work from, not an opening position. What moves a quote is how many heads end up on the sheet, where the drawing is going to run, and how fast you need it in your hands.
| Job | Personal Private use, no resale | Editorial One publication, one year | Advertising Campaign use, term negotiated |
|---|---|---|---|
| One head A single sitter, head and shoulders | $450 | $650 | $1,400 |
| Two heads A couple, a double act, a parent and a child | $700 | $950 | $1,900 |
| Four heads, one scene A family, a team, a table | $1,150 | $1,500 | $2,800 |
| Eight or more A department, a wedding party, a whole cast | From $2,000 | From $2,600 | From $4,500 |
| Live drawing, per hour Two hour minimum, one booking a weekend | $350 | $350 | $500 |
| Character design Turnaround, expressions and the written rules | $1,900 | $1,900 | $3,400 |
Under five days is forty percent on top, and I will tell you whether it is honestly possible before I take the money.
Changes on the rough are free and expected. After inking, one revision is included and a second is half the original fee.
Editorial is one publication for one year. Framing runs $120 to $260, shipping inside the United States is included, and travel outside Louisiana goes on the invoice at cost.
All figures in US dollars, before tax.
The hand
Twelve years, about nine thousand heads
Most of them strangers, and I can still name the first one.
In my own words
The whole job is deciding which feature is doing the talking.
I started on Jackson Square in 2014, drawing tourists for twenty dollars a head, six days a week in whatever the weather was doing. You learn faster there than anywhere else, because the person you are drawing is watching your hand move and you find out in real time which line was the wrong one.
These days about half of what I do is editorial, a quarter is live at events and weddings, and the rest are portraits people give each other. The studio is one room on St. Claude Avenue with north light, a radio I do not control and a drying rack that is always full.
I still keep every rough. Same size sheet, numbered, in boxes by year. Sheet one is a man in a Saints cap who looked at it for a long time and then told me I had made him look honest.
- Pentel pocket brush
- Faber-Castell 2B
- Winsor and Newton gouache
- Fabriano 200gsm
- Copic markers, live only
Send me a photograph and I will tell you honestly whether it will draw.
Status
The board right now
I keep this honest, because half the emails I get open with the same question.
Open for commissions
Two studio slots left before August, and live dates from September onward.
Editorial and gift portraits now, live dates from September onward
Two to three weeks from the approved rough, five to eight days for editorial
A twelve head family group and a podcast character turnaround
The first week of August, with no board and no scanner
Anything drawn on spec, or a portrait of somebody who has not agreed to be drawn
The board gets rewritten whenever something ships or a slot opens. If it says open, it is open.
Commissioned by
Who has put me on a page
Eight of the places whose deadlines I have met. The editorial ones come back roughly every six weeks, which is the best reference I can give you.
References
Three people who have paid me
Each one is filed against the job it came off, so you can see what they are actually talking about.
Ref. 01 Op-ed caricature, half pageWe have run caricatures for nine years and Curtis is the only one who has never needed a second brief. He reads the piece, not the photograph, and the drawing argues the same thing the column does.
Ref. 02 Live drawing, three day boothFour hundred people over three days and a line at the booth the whole time. He never once looked rushed, and two of the sales team still have theirs pinned above their desks a year later.
Ref. 03 Anniversary portrait, framedI gave my parents a drawing of their own porch, down to the chairs that have never matched, and my father had to leave the room for a minute. That is the review.
Before you write
The six I get asked every week
Does the person have to sit for you?
No. Most studio work is drawn from photographs, and fifteen minutes on a video call is worth more than any photograph you can send me - a still picture flattens a face, a moving one tells me what it does. Live drawing is the exception, and sitting there watching is the whole point of it.
How mean is it going to be?
Not mean. I push one feature and leave the rest alone, which reads as affectionate nearly every time. If you want it sharper, say so in the brief. Editorial pieces usually want a little more teeth than a gift does.
What can I do with the drawing afterward?
A personal commission is yours: print it, frame it, put it on a shirt, post it anywhere you like. Editorial and advertising come with a named license, one year and one territory, written on the invoice. Anything past that is a fee, not a problem.
How fast can you turn one around?
Five to eight days for editorial, two to three weeks for a studio portrait. Under five days is a rush and carries forty percent. I have not missed a print deadline yet and I would like to keep it that way.
Will you travel for a live event?
Yes. Anywhere in Louisiana is inside the hourly rate. Outside it, travel goes on the invoice at cost and I need the date at least six weeks out, because I only take one live booking a weekend.
What do you need from me to start?
Five to ten photographs or a time for a call, and one paragraph about the person. The paragraph is the useful part - somebody told me their grandfather fed the dog from the table and denied it, and that sentence is most of the drawing.
Anything not covered here: write, and say what you need in the first sentence. It gets a faster answer.
Start here
Commission a drawing
Five answers is usually enough for me to quote it. If it turns out to be simpler or cheaper than you expected, I will say so.
Tell me who is in it and what it is for. If a line is a guess, put the guess in - half of these start as a maybe and get firmer once we have talked.
Order received. I read every one of these myself and reply within two business days.
- What to send Five to ten photographs, or a time for a fifteen minute call. Blurry is fine. Smiling is not required, and a video is worth more than any still.
- What happens next A price, a date and two pencil roughs. Nothing gets inked until you have picked one, and changes at that stage are free.
- What I will not draw Anyone who has not agreed to be drawn, and nothing meant to humiliate a private person. Editorial subjects are a different matter.