3DTotal: Hi Jason and welcome to the pages of 2DArtist! Now for a young guy, you have a seriously impressive resume; you’ve done work for Universal Pictures, TIME and The New York Times; you swept the board at the last I.C.C.A convention, winning too many awards for me to list here; you’ve had books and DVDs published … but what I’d like to know is: how did it all begin? How did you take your first artistic steps to reach where you are today? And was your first commission really from your grade school principle [Laughs]?
Jason:My father is an artist as well, so I grew up surrounded by his drawings and paintings and was very young when I was first influenced by the idea of art. As a wildlife artist, he painted a lot of waterfowl for duck stamp competitions and because I probably thought I wanted to be an artist just like him, by the age of two I was drawing recognizable ducks with crayons and I knew their names as well. To this day I can still name almost any kind of duck I see! In fact, most of my younger days were spent filling my sketchbooks with birds, animals and the occasionally shark. Actually, I became obsessed with sharks at one point and drew over 350 different species in one book, listing their common and scientific names. My mom still has that book.

When I was seven, I began to get into drawing cartoon characters, like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck; I drew characters like this for years. Bugs Bunny turned into drawing the Ninja Turtles and from there I filled sketchbooks with Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man.  Around the age of 10, I was introduced to MAD magazine.  I rarely ever read it; I would mostly draw from it. Anything that looked fun to draw, I drew – mostly the work of Don Martin.  As I continued to draw from MAD, I began to start playing around with people, making them look more like “Don Martin” people, with big noses and funny feet.

 
   

When I was 11 or 12, I started doing my first caricatures, although at the time I didn't know there was a name for what I was doing. My dad was a youth pastor at the time and so I was drawing all the kids in my youth group.  I would spend hours and hours trying to capture their likenesses from photographs that I’d taken.  Soon after this I started drawing famous people; my first celeb caricature was of James Woods - my Mom has that as well!  My dad soon realized that I was obsessed with drawing caricatures and bought me Lenn Redman's book How To Draw Caricatures.  It was at that moment that I realized what I had been doing wasn't something I’d just come up with, and that it even had a name! 

My first commission for a “caricature” was indeed from my high school principle. I had a bad habit of always drawing on my homework and every once in a while I'd draw cartoons and caricatures of my teachers on my work, not thinking that they would eventually see what I had drawn.

One day in history class my teacher, Mr Wentz, saw a drawing that I had done of him. He took me to the Principle's office, the Principle excused him and when he left, she began to laugh. She said I’d done a great job and told me that while it wasn't a good idea to draw on my homework, I was very talented. She called me back into her office a day or so later and asked if I'd be interested in drawing nine teachers for a retirement party. I said sure and I was paid $20 a person.  It was then that I started to think that maybe I could caricatures for a living. And that’s how all of this all started.
3DTotal: It sounds like it was a pretty natural transition for you to move from caricature as a hobby to caricature as a potential career path. What was the transition like in reality? And just how difficult was it to turn that hobby into a sustainable career?
Jason:I had already been doing caricature and portraiture all the time, on my own time.  As I slowly became known for what I was doing I would take on more and more "side jobs", drawing for commission whenever I could.Eventually my "day job" was not only depressing for me to be at, but it was no longer needed.  Everything changed after I did a small piece for TIME magazine. That job "officially" changed my career. Soon after I began working for magazines and haven't stopped since.The difficulty for me in all of this was doing "gift caricatures" for people.  I hated doing them because for me it wasn't "real" art, or at least it didn't feel like it. I didn't want to draw people and their pets, or their request. People would want to be boxing Mike Tyson or flying an airplane.  I realized soon that this sort of work was for a different kind of artist. I still take private commissions, but now I paint what I want, how I want, I charge what I want, and there's no deadline, I finish when I can. It works better, this way I draw and paint naturally and I create an original piece of art that the client is happy with.
    
 
3DTotal: The evidence of your talent for caricature is clear from looking at your portfolio and your websites.  So I guess the natural next question is: why caricature? What is it about this area of art that captivates you so much? What key features are you looking for in the people you choose as subjects and how do you go about transforming someone into a caricature? 
Jason: This is a good question. The funny thing is I don't consider myself a "caricaturist". I'm an artist and I have a passion for portraiture. My portraits are stylized; some exaggerated, some funny, and some not so funny, like my oil portrait of Saddam. I can draw and paint a straight portrait, but that's not as interesting to me.  What I try to do is capture a person's essence; I try to capture their character. By exaggerating and pushing elements of truth, I enhance both the subject’s likeness and essence. I feel that what I do is a lot like impressionism; when I look at a person, really what I'm painting is my impression of them. Sometimes it may look like a straight portrait – there’s no need to exaggerate anything – other times it may be created out of exaggerated shapes and form. When I look at a person, I don't look for any particular thing, or the "obvious" feature on their face. I study that person and find out what makes them unique. All the features on the face make a person unique and they're all connected. I look for shape and I focus a lot of my energy on the subjects’ eyes and mouth. If it's a person I'm familiar with, I look for references of that person which are similar to what comes to mind when I picture that person in my head.  When it's someone I don't know well I surround myself with lots of photos and I do a lot more sketches and prep work.
    
 

3DTotal: What do you think is the best caricature you’ve ever produced? And what kind of tricks and techniques do you use?
Jason: Man, that's a hard question!  Honestly I don't know; I don't feel as though I have a favourite. I guess one of my favorite paintings is a recent one I did of George Lucas. I don't know if it's my best caricature - I only like about a handful of the paintings I've done. The George Lucas is a 16"x20" acrylic on linen board. I enjoyed the time I spent while working on that painting and I have it framed and hanging in my studio. I'm not sure if I could ever sell it though because it has personal value to me; it won Studio Painting of the Year at the ISCA's 2008 convention and then was chosen to be in Communication Arts Illustration Annual 50. I enjoy the work I do digitally, but when I paint with acrylics or oil I feel somehow connected to the painting. It’s then difficult for me to sell an original, no matter how much I may be getting for it.

I don't really feel as though I have any tricks. When I paint with acrylics or oils I usually paint on primed panel or linen board. I like to use a limited palette; usually my palette is Black, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, and White. I'll sometimes add a bit of Ultramarine to my Black.

My palette when painting digitally is very similar. I try to not use too much color, or at least I start off that way and slowly build. I use the paintbrush tool and that's really about it. The important thing that I do when painting digitally is to try and paint in a traditional way. I'll do an underpainting of sorts and intentionally let colors pop through from earlier on. Other than this, I don't feel I have any tricks; I'm not interested in abusing the computer or what it can do and I don't want my digital paintings to look digital. It's the greatest compliment when someone has to ask what medium a painting was done in. I was approached by many people at the ISCA convention who thought my George Lucas was a digital painting. I had brought the original with me for people to see and they were amazed that it had been created with "real" paint and "real" brushes.

    
     
 
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