Napkin Portraits

Yearly Napkin Portrait Dysfunction:

The Cover Your Nose and Mouth Edition.

Every year I rediscover the information that napkins do not photograph well when put next to actual people. And that my kids are unwilling to cooperate for even the two minutes it might take to line up the image. And this time I did not ask them to embarrass themselves on a subway platform.

But it’s the dysfunction that makes it interesting....right?

If the photo actually lined up the way I planned, what would be the fun in that?

Lion Parts

These aren't necessarily for lunch, but I was trying to work on my table top lion drawing skills.
And with how napkins might work with an object on the table.

Glass with Beverage

The Tuaca napkin art contest deadline is April 15th. 

Having won in 2014, I will not be entering this year, yet it seems I still have some beverage napkin ideas left over from last time.

Cat Memes: Cat Bearding and Catman

 

Very hypoallergenic versions of two internet fads from years past.

Since we've been marinating in internet cat references recently, I thought why not indulge in two of the silliest, (but yet still oddly compelling) of the cat photo fads from the last few years. Cat Bearding dates from 2011-2 and seems to have been quite widespread.

"How to Look Like Batman Using Your Cat" did not enjoy quite such broad popularity...perhaps because it was not as visually effective and more likely to result in injuries for the cat-wearer.

No risk of injury in our case- beyond those to personal dignity. Despite their love of virtual cats, my sons found posing for this photo to be mostly annoying.

An uncropped version of the photo: 

Below a child demonstrates how he thinks the napkins should be displayed.

...and uncharitably expresses his opinion of the whole project...subtle-like...so maybe I should not notice while taking the picture.

Cocktail Napkin for Tuaca Competition

Virtual beverage with extra finger:
A napkin not intended for second grade lunch.

Entries for this year's Tuaca napkin art contest are due by April 15th.
I was very fortunate to have one of my napkins chosen for the grand prize last year.  Visit tuacaart.com to enter and/or to see the submissions for this year and last. My previous posts about the contest and my several submissions are at this link.  There are very few venues for napkin art out there and the Tuaca contest is definitely the best one.

While I cannot say that I planned to end up a champion of the napkin medium... it's non-archival, disposable, silly....and my expertise developed despite my better judgement.  But clearly I have some sort of compulsion at this point. This particular napkin is a spillover idea from my entries to the Tuaca competition last year.  I can't enter this contest again, but the idea of napkin images that are not destined for my kids' lunchboxes apparently still holds some appeal for me.

I was the only person in the house who was of legal drinking age at the time,  so I had to use myself for this image.  My sons were bizarrely excited by the idea that I might be drinking at 11 am on a Sunday morning, but sadly all Tuaca consumption was imaginary. I had some minor surgery on my jaw and gums on the left side of my face a couple of days before, so I had to use the less swollen and purple side of my head in the photo and avoid all alcohol in favor of large doses of ibuprofen.

A couple of Tuaca napkins from last year:

Bedtime Monsters: Predator and Devil Wolf

And one last poorly executed iteration of the napkins replacing faces concept before we return to our regularly scheduled schoolday napkin programming.

The kids are each sporting the face of their favorite monster: Archer has a specific Predator named Dark from the "Alien vs. Predator" game, while Ansel has a non-trademarked red eyed "Devil Wolf" of his own design.

They are holding monster faces in bed, because...well...more often than not...they are monsters at bedtime.

LEGO Hulk with Kids

Tourist trapped: The kids in the Toy R Us in Times Square.

Who goes to Times Square in August? 

Apparently we do.  There were extenuating circumstances that brought us to the Toys R Us two days in a row, but I can't say that they really constituted a valid excuse.

Since I knew we were going to return the next day, I thought why not do a couple of portraits overnight so I could torture the kids on the second visit?...And that way I could be extra sleep deprived while navigating the seething masses of tourists.

I completely failed to match the green of the Hulk's LEGOs. I should have posed them in front of the animatronic dinosaur instead. 

They were much more enthusiastic about posing for this one.  If only I had known ahead of time that there would be a Predator among the bedraggled Elmos and Spider-men...

Selfie with Uncooperative Kids

 

....Or, if my sons were to title it: More Documentation of Child Abuse in Brooklyn.

Archer and Ansel were most unhappy to be roped into participating in my profile picture update. And I did not even have the good grace to offer a new toy or more screen time as an enticement for cooperation.

But at my advanced age and chronically sleep deprived state, really the best thing I can do to improve a photo of myself is to put a cute child or two in it, preferably in front of me.

I couldn't quite manage to get them in front here. Orchestrating this picture was harder than usual, as I couldn't see what was going on, and the kids were too busy expressing their disapproval to tell me whether the phone was pointed in the right general direction or not.

Perhaps it was just as well that I couldn't see myself.  I certainly photograph better in marker than in person. Fortuitously, it's pretty much impossible to capture on a napkin the things that happen to one's neck after age 45.

Kid Portraits for 2014

As usual, they suffered mightily while this picture was being taken.  I asked them to be still, and requested some adjustments of hand positions and such.  Torture.

Because their faces are covered, you cannot tell how much they are suffering.

I try to do a couple of portraits every summer during the downtime between summer camp and school.  You can see the previous portraits at the links below to discover whether my drawing is improving... or getting worse.  My camera phone has definitely improved since 2012, so at least the resolution and white balance are better.

Summer 2013

Summer 2012

March 2012

Below are the two individual napkins, photographed in the usual manner.
And a photo of the kids on the floor without napkins, so you can see how much pain they experienced during this project:

 

Winner of Tuaca Napkin Competition

I was honored to have my napkin selected for the grand prize in the TUACA napkin competition. (Link to TUACA facebook post on the prize)

The top image below (Two Lions Walk into a Bar...) was selected.  It was the third image out of four that I had submitted.  TUACA sent me a very generous check and a box full of TUACA themed swag.

The kids have already plotted many ways to spend the money.  They feel quite responsible for "our" prize as the napkin project overall is theirs.   If only they had any sense of financial reality...And if I could just manage to win a napkin drawing contest once a month....

You can click on the images below to see the original posts.

Thanks TUACA!

Tuaca Napkin

This afternoon, drawing a glass of alcohol was strangely more compelling than working on mortgage paperwork.  The deadline for this competition is tomorrow.  I am not entirely sure why it has been so compelling for me, beyond the obvious fact that very few people or corporations offer monetary incentives for drawing pictures on napkins.

I had much bigger plans for the trompe l'oeil aspect of this drawing, but the 20 minutes I had to give it forced me to be more realistic... or maybe less realistic.  

I spend a lot of time thinking about realism and the merits of accurate representation both in regard to my own work and students' work.  Unfortunately, I did not have any meaningful epiphanies while drawing this...beyond perhaps the not very useful and persistent observation that I draw better when I don't have time to try hard.

You can see my other cocktail napkin efforts here.

And view the Tuaca contest page here. 

 Below,  source material and the napkin alone:

Cocktail Napkin With Lion For Scale

This is my second submission for a drawing on cocktail napkins contest held by Tuaca, so this definitely will not be going to school in a child's lunchbox.

I seem to be stuck on the lion imagery.  Tuaca has roots with the Renaissance Medicis (and their marble lions) and has heraldic lions on the bottle. 

Maybe what this one really needed was a marble lion....

(My other napkin submission can be seen here if you don't want to scroll down.

The official website for all submissions is http://www.tuacaart.com/gallery/ although you will need to be able to say that you are at least 21.)

New Profile Picture, Sort Of

It had been a while since the first napkin profile picture, so it seemed time to try another.

It's not a particularly good likeness, but it is not worse than its predecessor.

The kids were so unimpressed, they could barely interrupt their viewing of "Ghostbusters" long enough to hold the thing up.

Napkin Portraits

Kids with napkin portraits: terrible suffering was involved in taking this picture: the wearing of clothes, sitting still for at least 90 seconds, not punching each other..

Kids in Cowls

A profile picture of sorts for the kids.  They were quite displeased when I asked them to pose as I interrupted them as they were charging around the house in full Bat-regalia....and then they had to pose again after the napkin was done, a double imposition.  They were reasonably happy with the results, none the less.  Archer asked if he could take it to school as his lunch napkin on Monday.  Based on past experience, it seems highly unlikely that it will not be upstaged by another request by then.