Hola Hello and thank you for dropping by my website to see my recent updates. I am playing ‘catch up’ on the past few months and I’ve been extremely busy with caricature booking, commissions and even the opportunity to have a few days residency at The House Of Fraser in Birmingham.
Dan at the House Of Fraser contacted me asking if I wanted to take a free opportunity to set up in store and sell my on the spot caricatures. I, of course, snapped up the opportunity and booked in 5 days there.
So I set up (see above – over the days I decorated it more but had no time to take more photos) and it wasn’t long until I was caricaturing the shoppers.
Some from photos on their phones which I transferred to my tablet…
Some on the spot…
and when I had time between shoppers I did some quick #PeopleSketching of shoppers going by…
Animals were also requested which is always fun (and reminds me – I will be at the Cramar Open Day on 19/08/2018
This cat commission inspired a series of cat illustrations based on the types of shoppers I saw in House Of Fraser:
It was a great opportunity and the staff were very friendly. I even had an ex-employee drop by and tell stories about the kinds of people who worked at the department store back in the day. He had an old photo of the store with him posing next to a James Bond car which was in-store for a promotion.
It was sad to hear a week after I was there that House Of Fraser are closing so many stores around the UK including the Birmingham store. I guess being away from the cluster of shops and stores in the Bull Ring and Grand Central that are all linked together means that this store has become forgotten about in recent years. Good luck to all those working there and hope you go onto great things.
Mikey
