Roy Blumenthal's Artworks

I was at the Norwood Police Station this morning, following up on two cases… An assault charge against someone, and a breaking and entering charge against two people. When I left the detectives’ office, I found three horses and their riders outside. So I thought I’d draw them. I took a few photos for reference, retired to the snug confines of the Hyde Park Seattle Coffee Company, and sketched this in my new Moleskine.

At my WorldsView Technologies gig on Friday, I was using Autodesk SketchBook Pro to do my visual facilitation of the event.

The reason I was using this software instead of my customary ArtRage is that WorldsView are the South African distributors for the range of Autodesk products.

As a result, I was a tad unfamiliar with the workflow.

In ArtRage, I happily work away on different layers, making them invisible when I move onto another drawing. So I end up with a big ArtRage file (around 150megs), containing loads of pictures that I can then export as JPEGs after the session.

I made the fatal assumption that SketchBook Pro would behave the same way.

And after the session ended, when people were asking me questions about the software, I saved my stack of pics (around 20 or so of them), and opened a new document for someone to play on.

When I reopened my stack, I found that SketchBook Pro had discarded all of the invisible layers, leaving me with only this picture… the last one I drew before I saved the document.

It’s definitely a learning curve to use a new piece of software in a live situation. I had the software for a few days before the gig, and I THOUGHT that I’d put it through its paces. But I didn’t even THINK about testing the way the package saves pics.

As it happens, the client loved what I was doing, and they’ve hired me for another session this coming Friday.

THIS TIME I’ll be sure to save the file as a layered TIFF, which will solve my problem nicely!

This pic was painted live during a WorldsView Technologies distributor meet-and-greet. I worked in an evaluation version of Autodesk SketchBook Pro, using my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

This is the pic I made while showing delegates at the meeting how SketchBook Pro works. Sadly for me, creating THIS file made me lose every pic bar the last one in the previous file.

Live and learn, huh?

But at least my nose stayed above water. (It always does, for some unknown reason.)


This pic was painted live during a WorldsView Technologies distributor meet-and-greet. I worked in an evaluation version of Autodesk SketchBook Pro, using my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

This afternoon I’m doing a visual facilitation gig for the WorldsView Technologies, the guys who distribute the AutoDesk products in South Africa.

They asked me if I wouldn’t mind doing the gig using AutoDesk SketchBook Pro.

So they’ve given me an evaluation version for the gig, and have said they’d be happy to give me a full license for the program for use later. So I’m quite excited.

I last used SketchBook Pro several years ago. And the latest version seems to be a much improved tool.

I’m impressed with the selection tools. And they’ve fixed up the smudge and blur tools to some extent.

I did this quick doodle dude just to make sure that I’ve got a bit of a grasp of the workflow of the program.

It’s got some very neat and useful features for visual facilitators. And I can see that if ArtRage doesn’t offer significant improvements in version 3.0, there’s a chance I’ll zip over to SketchBook Pro.

It’s early days though.

This pic was made in next to no time at all in a 15-day evaluation version of AutoDesk SketchBook Pro on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Lisa was one of the guests at the Y&R party. She and her boyfriend/husband posed for a caricature.

At the end of the sketch, she said to me, ‘Can I do you?’ She repeated the question: ‘I’m not kidding. Can I DO YOU?’

I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. But I assumed she meant, ‘Can I do a portrait of you?’

As it happens, my assumption was correct. And this is the pic she produced.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.

I was the caricaturist at Y&R Johannesburg’s ‘Dress To Kill’ party last night.

I had a plasma screen mounted above my easel. And people who took the risk of posing for me were rewarded with some banter and some entertaining twists of their features.

This crop of pics is the result.

These pics were made live, on the spot, at an out of the way post at the party. I was working in ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc.

Caricaturing at parties is one of my skills. Making live visual interpretations of talks, presentations, seminars, meetings is another of my skills. Go to http://royblumenthal.com/portfolio for my pricelist and contact details.