This time last year I made a proclamation. I only want to work on stuff that I love. I want to be involved in comedy. I didn't really know how specifically I would wedge my Chuck Taylor into this world but soon enough I was able to get in with San Francisco comedy clubs (and SF Sketchfest!), making show posters. I'm even getting up for some open-mics. It's kinda nuts how quickly things have moved since then. After getting to know the folks at Cobb's Comedy club and Punch Line, they asked me to help them redecorate the green room at Cobb's with a series of caricatures. These are the comedians who left us too soon. So I launched into painting these iconic comics in watercolor and inks.
When I was first commissioned, I had visions of these pieces being ultra-simplified Hirschfeld-esqe caricatures but strangely enough they are turning out to look more like my drawings. Oh well, the world already has Hirschfeld-esque drawings. They were drawn by Al Hirschfeld.
Check out the first seven pieces comedians, Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, Mitch Hedberg, Patrice O'Neal, Greg Giraldo, Redd Foxx, and Robert Schimmel
By the way, this is an image dump because stuff on Blogspot shows up in Google searches and not on my current, Squarespace site. It's a bum out. For all the latest bookmark BenWalkerArt.com.