alice & melissa

alice (portrayed above) and melissa are members of the Everyday Matters drawing group. they accepted the portrait party invitation as a drawing challenge. melissa's two year old daughter approved the results by saying "awww, it's mama."

andy warhol & jamie wyeth

say what you like about andy warhol. i have always admired his talent for making artistic friendships. here is a portrait trade between himself and jamie wyeth, son of andrew and grandson of n.c wyeth.

carolita johnson & mauricio salmon

oh, but that's not all! here's another round by carolita and mauricio!

carolita johnson & mauricio salmon

carolita and mauricio met up again, this time at bryant park. theirs might qualify as portrait picnics.

paul gauguin & camille pissarro

i have a little collection of historical portrait parties like this one between paul gauguin and camille pissarro.

this site will never be an art history lesson but there is something that i love so much about these past encounters. it humanizes famous painters to know that they bumped into each other now and then and even got along well enough to draw one another... on the same sheet of paper in this instance.

switchsky & sean duggan

more portraits by illustration friday night pals, switchsky and sean.

rama hughes & michael wertz

thanks to the magic of the internets, my wife and i have made a lot of friends who we've never really met. when she asked me not so long ago which of them i would like to meet in person, i answered "michael wertz!" but you already met him! "i know."

above is a portrait that mister wertz drew of me for our annual music trade. you can see the color version here.

the pain of having an internet friend is that, if you want to draw him, he has to send you a photograph.

and you are at his mercy if he's gonna act nuts!

steve w. & nina khashchina

steve and nina seem to agree that this portrait of him is not her greatest work. his portrait of her might explain why.

jeannette langmead & cowboydog

this portrait of jeannette by cowboydog says it all. her drawing of him (below) is her sixth portrait swap in as many weeks!

cindy woods & dayzchane louis

cindy drew dayzchane (above) and dayzchane returned the favor.

leonie allan & red sonja

leonie (above) and her friend, sonya (below), chose a portrait party as their creative project of the week. other projects include making "magical magic books" for each other.

jeannette langmead & steve patton

jeannette, the one woman portrait platoon, seems to send new drawings every week.

her partner this time is steve patton whom she drew below.

damien weighill & mandy schonzeit

damien weighill is hosting a contest on his blog in which he challenges his readers to draw him from their imagination. this hairy fellow above is mandy's guess and she's sure she drew him right. damien usually draws his visitors. (that's the promise of his blog, your face.) so, below is his take on miss mandy.

justin morton & kerstin klein

this was the first portrait party for justin morton and kerstin klein (although she sent this one first, probably to get on my good side). kerstin was amused by the results: "i made him look like a thug" and her brother thinks her portrait looks like a boring aunt.

jesus & josey

jesus and josey drew each other during pati's fiesta de retratos. you can see photos of the party in progress here.

rama hughes & christine castro

one year ago, my wife and i got married. the months leading up to the ceremony were an ordeal. although we didn't come close to breaking up, the preparations did bring us as close to breaking up as i can remember. now, i think of wedding plans as a rite of passage. and i have lots sympathy for those who have to do it.

on the day of the wedding, i woke up in a hotel room by myself. i hadn't been alone with my wife for a couple of weeks. i felt like i was about to perform a christmas play on christmas morning. i was that nervous and that giddy. when i heard ~ by way of the maid-of-honor ~ that christine was calm, i felt calm too. the day was amazing. all the preparations paid off. there was so much laughter and joy. and dancing and candy! our marriage has barely begun but it has been a blast so far.

of course, we did have some fun with the wedding plans. my favorite chores were cake tasting and illustrating the invitations. this drawing, for our save the date cards, is a portrait of me drawn by christine and a portrait of her drawn by me. i inked both drawings and she designed them into the invitations. our first collaboration!

lali hughes & rama hughes

my sister, lali, is a fantastic model. when we were growing up, she would drop almost anything to pose for me. my favorite example being a time that she stepped out of the shower to take a phone call but sat down ~ soaking wet ~ for a portrait when i told her that her hair looked cool. besides this willingness to be drawn, lali has a talent for being still without being rigid that is a rare treat for artists.

despite her talents as a model AND her natural talent for art, lali is reluctant to draw. she seems to enjoy the process but hates worrying about the product. so, she tends to stick to drawing exercises (like blind contour), creating iconic drawings, and experiments like this portrait of me.

when a felt tip marker dried up, she smashed it open and used the inky insides to execute this portrait of me on a page from the new yorker. the headline (if you can't read it) says "misogyny on every wall" which always alarmed me for some reason. it is one of my favorite portraits. on another occasion, lali drew with chocolate cake.

uncle rama & ethan

my little cousin, ethan, is in the hospital. i used to give him art lessons when i visited but, over the months, he's been less interested in learning to draw than he is in just plain drawing or, even better, playing transformers. last night, he managed to finish a pretty cool sabertooth tiger before we began a game of "guess what i'm drawing." the stick figure with the giant muscles and big ears is supposed to be me. "you made me look like the easter bunny!" i told ethan. "i made you look like a monster!" the boy with his hand in his mouth is ethan. "what am i doing?" he asked. "wiggling your loose tooth."

kerstin klein & christine castro

until this month, kerstin klein had only drawn three portraits in her life. she jumped into the portrait party with both feet though and surprised christine with the drawing below.

(click the picture for a larger view.)

switchsky & jeannette langmead

so far, switchsky and jeannette have done more of these portrait swaps than anyone else and, in my opinion, they keep getting better and better. if you want either of them to draw you, now's the time to ask. before they burn out. i mean literally. their pencils might catch fire.

switchsky went ahead an drew jeannette twice. second is the best!

steve w. & jeannette langmead

party champs, steve and jeannette, return for another bout!

christine castro & rama hughes

one of the little things that i love about my wife is that she always looks different to me. two nights in a row, i drew her head again and again while she watched television. in each drawing, i noticed something new. in this case, the wing of hair that fell over her pony tail.

christine didn't feel like drawing me but snapped suddenly when i was meditating on spider-man 3. "i want to draw you now!" i did my best to hold that thought.

patricia m. de cabana & keiber vaz

patricia and her students had a real life portrait party! the portrait above was drawn by her student, keiber. and pati returned the favor below. you can see photos from their "fiesta de retratos" here.

christine castro & mandy schonzeit

my great friend, mandy, surprised my wife, christine, with this drawing almost as soon as the portrait party website got started. mandy is always surprisingly fast with her artwork.

christine was neck deep in design work but i couldn't help teasing her to draw mandy too. draw mandy soon. (i am just so excited that they are friends also.) so, she did.

with a caveat that this drawing isn't done yet. there's gonna be color!

steven weissman & rama hughes

i've been racked with guilt because this portrait of steven weissman and his family has been shuffled around my back burners since january. i meant to give him a painted version before the chinese new year but it's been one of those wonderfully/awfully busy springs.

i am finally looking forward to a bit of free time in may when i can catch up on personal projects and the weissman's family portrait is on the top of my list. this drawing of me (below) arrived just in time to say that, maybe, just maybe, steven isn't mad at me for being such a procrastinator. and to encourage me to make the wait worthwhile.

rama hughes & christine castro

i met my wife four years ago today. i was living in oregon at the time and she lived in los angeles. we discovered each other through our websites and were instant penpals. then the care packages started. and the five hour phone calls. after a couple of months, christine told me that she was going to seattle to see her brother. she suggested a visit while she was in the area. no way, i thought. it's a bad idea. i had such a big crush on her; i was scared that meeting in person would ruin it. "did you ever think that i might be scared too?" she asked. "that's your problem," i said.

she talked me into it though. i had to screw up the courage to let go of our friendship if we had no chemistry in person. she took a train to see me. i vividly remember the wait. when she arrived, it was a little awkward. i asked her what she wanted to do. she told me that she'd been reading the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay on the train. it was just getting good. "do you want to go read?" she had to think about it but, no. we did a dozen other things. the next day, we did go to powell's bookstore. we spent the whole morning in the children's section.

my brother and i moved to california one month later.