Grigor is a theme park caricaturist on the East Coast, New Jersey I think. The man is a genius! He solved one of the most difficult problems in all of portraiture....how do you caricature a perfectly normal face? It's easy to exagerrate a nose that's already a little long. What do you do when the nose is perfect and so is every other appendage? No problem, says Grigor.In the example above Grigor takes the dreaded perfect nose (The guy's nose, that is), pulls it out of the face and points it upward. That's a risky thing to do. The guy's nose doesn't naturally point up. You could lose the likeness. Grigor seems to have discovered what John K discovered, namely that you can invent characteristics as long as the drawing still FEELS like the person. I'll point out that Grigor also gave the guy a muzzle he didn't have before and a cow pie in place of his hair.
Talk about creating a muzzle, Grigor gave this girl (above) a muzzle fit for a giraffe. And she's a good-looking girl too! Did he worry about losing the likeness? Did the crowd string him up? Nope! He fearlessly laid on the muzzle and it worked! Of course it fits into the crescent moon of the boyfriend's face.
Unbelievable! Here (above) he makes the girl's face huge then turns around and makes the guy's face even bigger! Does Grigor know no fear!? What if it hadn't worked!!??? The man is the Evil Keneival of caricaturists!
I'll add that Grigor also does realistic paintings of distinction. A tip of the Uncle Eddie cap to Grigor Eftimov, caricaturist extraodinaire!
The guy's nose doesn't naturally point up. You could lose the likeness.
ReplyDeleteI think it works because he is not simply pointing the guy's nose up, he is distorting perspective to look at it from underneath. He seems to use multiple perspectives in the same drawing. He damn near does an Escher on people.
1:37 AM
OH- I looked at his site a few months ago, I don't remember how I got there...
ReplyDeleteBut yes, amazing facial reconfigurations! His eyes are magically viewing their faces as if they were made of puddy and he's just pulling out and pushing back what he wants.
Hi Eddie,
ReplyDeleteThis is really neat! This stuff is solid.
Thanks for sharing,
Sophorn
Go here to see the picture of you in the hot rod...
http://1941robote.blogspot.com/
Brilliant work! Thanks for hightlighting this man's work!
ReplyDeleteI added Grigor to my links for these very pictures alone. If there was a Nobel Prize for caricature, I'd nominate Grigor with no hestitation.
ReplyDeleteI've just visited Grigor's blog for the first time. This guy is sensational! His caricatures are truly original and unique... I've never seen anything like that. Perhaps only Marlo has the similar approach to caricature (and she's an amazing artist too). Grigor's also an excellent realistic painter, and it's a rare case of an artist who's outstanding in two extremely different and opposite fields.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that John K. advice. It's one of the best caricature theories ever. It will be of
great help to many people. It will help me too, for sure. Several months ago I started to practice drawing of portraits and caricatures, and noticed that whenever I try to follow blindly the exact proportions and facial
features, the resulting picture almost never looks like the real person. When I start to exaggerate, the similarity suddenly appears. Still, I'm at the moment unable to push and exaggerate as much as I would like, and often have problem to determine exactly what facial features should be exaggerated. Sometimes, it's a trial and error process and it takes 6-7 different attempts until I reach something half-satisfactory.
You can see some of the examples on my blog, but beware as some of the people I caricatured are not known outside the country where I live.
Wonder what he charges a pop. I mean shouldn't he be doing more magazine editorial commissions, rather than camping out under the corndog stand?
ReplyDeleteIt isn't the the physiology that his style means to capture with the funhouse mirror distortion, it is the -expression- rather than the likeness that might be caricatured accurately (or not) here. A bit like congealed animation.
Uncle Eddie, have him do you!
Maybe influenced by Jean Paul Goude and Steve Brodner, with a dash of Barry Jackson, but he took it all someplace else and made it his own.
ReplyDeleteHammerson: Great caricatures!
ReplyDeleteSophorn: Wow! Thanks for the photo! That was a fun lunch and driving around in your hot rod was a blast!
Cableclair: That drowning picture was great! We need more artwork like that! I can imagine that it made a big impression on you when you were a kid. Kids love stuff like that!
Jorge: To do justice to a Mike Barrier post that night would have taken a couple of hours and I was just too sleepy.
my mouth just dropped - I AM SOooooooooooooo HONORED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank u eddie!! <3 <3 <3
ReplyDeleteI will never understand caricachures.
ReplyDeleteFuck, i can't even spell the damn thing...
Wow... some scientist needs to take grigor's and marlo's dna and combine them to create a super charicature uberman!
ReplyDeleteHmmm, maybe it would be easier to simply lock them in a room full of soul records and booze.
Hey Eddie. Im pretty sure Grigor lives in the Chicagoland area. I emailed him about doing some charicatures for me awhile ago. Im still slacking on sending the pictures. Id love to have a piece of Grigor art.
ReplyDeleteRyan: Chicago!? Hmmm, maybe I got it wrong.
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked he was in Cicero Illinois. Just outside of downtown. Maybe he moved to the east coast? Where you at Grigor?
ReplyDelete>> Hammerson: Great caricatures!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Uncle Eddie! I just posted couple of new caricatures on my blog.
Yep, Chicago. He teaches at the School of Representational Art. I'm going to attempt to meet him soon as I head by there to a different arts school for figure drawing sessions with The Palette and Chisel. I can't pass up the oppurtunity to see such an incredible artist in person.
ReplyDeletegrigor is like a legend among live caricature artists, we've all been talking about him for years. he inspired alot of us who hadn't even seen his artwork yet just by the stories you'd hear about his rejections and his crazy stretches. its good to see him get some attention..... also, there is no shame in drawing at a theme park, its hard fucking work.... especially if you exaggerate
ReplyDeleteRyan, Brian, Jert: So it is Chicago! Thanks for the correction!
ReplyDeleteHey, if you know any good Grigor stories this would be a good place to tell them. Do people really reject his drawings sometimes? What fools!
The Chicago School of Representational Art is across the street from the Cook County Academy of Meat.
ReplyDeleteactually thats a parking garage-
ReplyDeleteGreat work!Very very nice!!!Congratulations!
ReplyDelete