Every Wednesday at Duffy's SUPERPLAY USA

It's a hit at Duffy's SUPERPLAY USA every Wednesday evening. Artist Tony Dee Digregorio is creating FREE portraitoons [these are cartoon portraits] the children choose MINI BODIES created by the artist. It all takes inside of five minutes. Duffy's is located at St Lucie West Blvd. Port Saint Lucie

Tony 'Dee' Digregorio at easel.

Duffy's Superplay USA presents Artist Tony Dee

Every Wednesday at Duffy's Superplay USA get your FREE caricature or portrait by artist Tony Dee.
Now at Duffy's located at 1600 NW Courtyard Circle Port St. Lucie, FL 34986
772.408.5800
Tony is doing his stuff and they're lovin' it...kids and adults. So come on down, the food is great.

Doggie Day at Weston Hills

What do you do on a sunny Saturday with your dog?...take it to the park and enjoy a beautiful outing for fun and exercise. On Saturday May 22nd, I was asked again to participate in 'Doggie Day' at Weston Hills CC in Weston FL. Sketching portraits of loving pets. I call it sketching a 'moving target', of course they do not sit still and best of all they do not complain if you give them a double chin. I had a wonderful time doing the event, it usually happens every year about the same time. I brought along our little 'Princess' and she was very good while she socialized with the other dogs. Below are photos of our Cavalier Prince Charles Spaniel.

" What do you mean it's your couch?...not when I'm laying here."

Princess PIA....guess what P.I.A stands for...'pain in the a__'

Creating a caricature versus a portrait.

In creating a caricature you must concentrate on the overall shape of the subject's face and then concentrate on the features that form the likeness of your subject. I usually start with a light sketch [using a lead stick or tombow light marker ] starting with the person's right side or left side of my drawing bringing the line down to the jaw line and around the chin and up the other side joining the ear. Then I place the chin line and work up to the smile.

Usually I ask for a smile because it puts more character in the face. Then I place the nose and sort of rough in the eyes with the same light marker or lead stick. Now I reach for my Sharpie 'fine point' marker and start putting in the smile. Next comes the nose, I accentuate the shape as much as possible but do not get way off base. The eyebrows come next and I then sketch in the eyes. Now I switch to my dependable marker by Dixon called Markette. This marker gives me the line I want...heavy at times and thin at certain areas. I create the hair line and have some fun with hair. If the subject is bald ...oh well that's a different post.
The popular Dixon Markette Pen is a durable permanent ink pen with a bullet type fine point nib. The bold black ink dries quickly and resists fading. When used on coated paper or text stock, one pen will yield dozens and dozens of drawings. The Dixon Markette Pen is widely used by many professional caricature artists. A good replacement or alternative to the Design Art Marker 229-LF. 
 Sketching a portrait....

 PORTRAIT...
The materials used in doing a portrait are Sharpies [fine point] and the Dixon Markette with Tombow markers dual brush pen for shading.  When doing the portrait I do not use pencil sketching first and do not use erasers. I go directly into drawing the features using the fine point Sharpie. I start at the mouth with or without a smile. Next I add the nose starting with the nostrils and work up to the eyes. I watch the distance relationship between each feature. I add the eyebrows next and I do the hairline adding the ears if they are showing. Finish the hair with the Markette. I finish the 7 minute sketch by shading the features as shown in the illustration below.

It's amazing ....God's power.

I was doing an event at the Hyatt Bonaventure last night. The guests were very happy about my work and for some reason I was getting extraordinary compliments. As a result I began to get 'tips' which I try not to accept on bookings for corporates or private events. For some reason one 'tip' found it's way into my empty coffee paper cup and I added a scrap piece of paper to it. One of the guests pulled out the 'tip' which was soaked in the left over coffee and told me that it was there and I said "no...that's waste, let it be"... ( thinking it was my piece of paper )she looked at me in amazement and put the bill back in the cup. Because of my partial blindness I did not see it for some reason and put the cup on the ground under my side table to be disposed of later on. At the end of my booking I started to breakdown and pack my gear, at that time a service person for the hotel was cleaning up and a few moments later came back and presented me with the 'bill' that was in the coffee and said " sir ...this is yours, I found it in a cup "...
I thanked her and rewarded her. I wanted to share this with you to show you how 'blessed' I am at this time in my life.

Doing the Saint Lucie river by canoe.

I had an adventurous experience this week when I met a wonderful artist from Alaska named Bill Brody.

No this is not Tarzan in the jungle...it's Tony Dee painting on the river.

I will give you the website link below so you can see some of his great work. We started the trip by launching the canoe down the boat ramp and I sat in front and Bill did the steering. This was my first experience on a canoe. My wife made wonderful sandwiches and the air was fresh and the day was just beautiful. Bill chooses to do his paintings as if you are in the scene so we pulled into a large tree with 'air plants' hanging and we were right in the middle of the scene. I did a quick watercolor but no comparison to Mr Brody's work. He was working on a large canvas and did the finish in his studio. 

Watercolor on location by Tony Digregorio.

Now to see some great work by Bill Brody see it all on his site at:
http://www.billbrodyartist.com/paintings/index.html

Fort Pierce art show every Saturday...get your caricatures by Tony Dee

This Saturday and every Saturday until first week in June artist Tony 'Dee' Digregorio will be doing wonderful portraits and caricatures...at the art show. The show is located at downtown Fort Pierce. Simply take Orange road exit [131]from 95 and come east to the water and you will see the white tents to your left. The price is so reasonable, he sells the black and white head pose for $5...what a deal.
There's lots of good things to browse through, so come on down and spend a Saturday in the fresh air.
Oh by the way...the time is 8am until 1pm. Bring your smile.