Time We Discuss: Become a Silhouette Portait or Caricature Artist (Emily Byrne)

Transcription

(Music)

Emily Byrne: I call it a ripple effect entertainment because it's not happening just at my easel. And that's why it's so great for trade shows. Everyone wants to see the caricature artists.

Dan: Today on Time We Discuss, I want to welcome Emily Byrne and it's time we discuss what it's like being a caricature artist. Emily, thank you for joining me today.

Emily Byrne: You're so welcome.

Dan: This is really, really cool. So caricature artists, I've seen them different places. Admittedly, I've never gotten a caricature done. But I think they are awesome. With a typical day when you are somewhere doing a caricature. What is a typical day like getting ready to get there? Once you're there, the cleanup? How does all that happen for you?

Emily Byrne: Well, we don't have much to bring. We have an easel and paper and pens, maybe a light. So we're like pretty lightweight stuff to come in. We show up at the venue. Usually it's a wedding or a corporate event. They show us to where we're at, we set up and all of a sudden a million people show up out of nowhere in our line for us to draw. So we're used to being like the most popular thing at some events. I start drawing the first person shows it to somebody and then all these people are there and I'm putting smiles on their face literally and figuratively.

Dan: You mentioned corporate events, you mentioned weddings. So what other types of events do you find yourself at?

Emily Byrne: Fundraisers, college things, alumni day, back to school events, fall festivals, looking at my calendar right now, a lot of fundraisers in the fall for some reason. A lot of wedding receptions. This has become like June, October, September and October, the weather is so nice. So people are having weddings more than they used to. I used to do a lot more like family birthday parties and things like that. But people that booked me for these big events, they're usually planned long in advance. So I'm not so available at short notice anymore. I just got one this morning that I would have liked to put myself in two places. But I can't do next week. I've had a wedding booked for months. So yeah, my calendar is pretty full.

Dan: Let's go back to the beginning. How did you actually get started doing this?

Emily Byrne: Most people that do this have been lifelong artists, whether they've received college training or not. I was one of those people that like drawing rock stars. I like drawing logos. I mean, people would pay me to draw Aerosmiths logo on their copybook in school, which really dates how old I am. But I like drawing faces. I like drawing. I didn't know they were caricatures at the time. So I just kept up with that. And in the early 90s, I needed to make some money. I was home with three little kids and needed to do something I thought I want to do what I could do with my drawing. So I started doing like pastel portraits, and I would be in art shows. And I did this art show in West Chester. And I was with my pastel portraits and people were walking around looking. And this lady showed up. And she put up a French easel on the patio. And all of a sudden, like I said, all these people appeared out of nowhere and were in her line. And she's turning out these drawings. And I went over there and I watched her and I was like, Whoa, I knew people did this on the boardwalk and in theme parks, but I didn't live near either one of those. So I never thought, you know, so after it was over, I went up to her and I said, How do I get into this? And this was pre internet, so I could not do research. Well, not really research, but she said, Just go home and draw your family, draw your children, draw their friends, get used to it. And then you can start doing fairs and things like that. So that's what I did. I went home and every birthday party I had for my kids, they were like, Mom, no, no. And all their friends would be like, Yes, yes. After doing that for a while at the school, school events, people started, the teachers started to hire me for birthday parties and things like that. And it snowballed from there, I started doing fairs I would bring the kids with me and they would sit there with their Gameboys behind me and play. That went on and then the internet came and I met other caricature artists. And I found out there's this thing called ISCA, International Society of Artists Convention every year, meet all these people. That brought me to all kinds of other opportunities. And then it started being snowball. And people started booking me for all kinds of things. Same thing with the silhouettes. Didn't know anyone that did that. Met two people at the convention. One was from, one was from California. And then at another convention I went to in Europe, she was from the Netherlands. And I was like, Oh, I could do this. So I came home and I bought some scissors. Here they are. For intestinal surgery. I've started doing silhouettes at events. And my first gig for that was the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. So I was drawing all these alien people with alien, you know, things and everything. So yeah, I've done my career just it just takes me where the people I meet take me, you know, like twist and turns.

Dan: That's so interesting. So I've seen, you know, I think everyone has seen silhouettes, you know, that in that style, you've seen them in pictures, you've seen them. Exactly. You've seen them all over the place. But I never actually until I discovered you, I didn't realize that people actually would create them for you kind of on the fly. And that's really, really cool. So in what you're doing now, what percentage for you is silhouette versus caricature?

Emily Byrne: The first year, I think I did under 10 silhouette gigs. Now it's about one third of my business.

Dan: When people find you, are they specifically looking for a silhouette artists and they find them? Wow.

Emily Byrne: Yeah, I don't really have too many people that have to be explained what the benefits of each are because they are different. With caricatures, I tell them, are you looking for a whimsical vibe? Are you looking for things where people have a sense of humor? You know, what is the theme of your event? Sometimes Carnival will work with caricatures, artists, you know, because caricature is a historical thing. I mean, it's been going on since like the 1700s. With silhouettes, that might be one where there it's fashionable people that want, you know, fancy hats or Bridgerton, or Victorian. And so it fits a whole other niche that caricature doesn't really go into. So I don't do both of them at one event. I have been asked, can you bring all your stuff and do either or and I don't mix them because it's two different headplaces for me.

Dan: I remember when I was a kid, you had these, I'm gonna call them caricature books, for lack of better words. And it might be like, you know, you had …

Emily Byrne: You mean Mad magazine?

Dan: No, no, no. I remember seeing, you'd get them at the Scholastic Book Fair or something like that. And you have like, this is a soccer player and you can put a head in or something. So you kind of mix and match almost. So think of the silhouettes, you have something kind of like that your disposal where it's kind of like, I don't want to say templates, but something in that it was all just like off the fly. Like this is what you do. You decided what kind of hat you want to do. How do you do that?

Emily Byrne: They're sitting in front of me. I'm not making it up out of thin air. They are sitting in front of me at a 90 degree angle. It takes me about two minutes. How I explain it to people is I'm drawing with scissors, because it looks like this piece of art is coming out of thin air, because it's just a little tiny piece of paper. And all of a sudden, it is somebody's, you know, it's that this is my friend, Terry, by the way, so I'll have to tell you to watch Terry. It happens so quickly that people are amazed. And then when I tell them this is what people did before photography, existed, because if you wanted to have an image of your loved one to take with you in in a wallet, because people did have wallets back then. That's what you had. This was what you did.

Dan: It's so cool. So that the that's all cut out. That's all done with scissors.

Emily Byrne: Yeah, I'll say it's This is what I come home with. I don't know if you can see this. That is the outside piece of the paper that an actual silhouette, what I cut out of this child got pasted on a piece of paper like that. And I come home with a bag full of these. So I mean, I would do one for you right now. But I can't talk and do it. That's okay. That's that is so cool. Not being a public speaker. I'm not trying to do that and talk and answer questions at the same time.

Dan: So let's talk about the time it takes to create these. So for both of those, generally speaking, how does it take you to create a single caricature versus a single silhouette?

Emily Byrne: Silhouettes are really fast. They're just the outline. They are a profile under two minutes. And that includes the time it takes for me to paste it down on a piece of paper and sign my name. Caricatures are, there's two kinds that I do. There's a line drawing, which I'm only the marker. And then there's a shaded one where I have dimensionality on it, which takes a little longer. And that's what most clients like. So that's a little slower. With the ones where I shade, I can do between 12 and 15 faces an hour. With the line drawing ones, I can do 18 to 20 people an hour, which you know, three hours, I can do 60 people. And people are, you know, amazed. I'm amazed sometimes too.

Dan: Yeah, that is that is really cool. Because like, I am definitely not a visual artist by any stretch. You know, I've talked about before on the show, like a very strong music background music is I'm music this music that but visual art, I'm just always blown away by the different things people can create. And especially the speed at which you can do that, like two minutes to do a silhouette, I'm just I'd be there with my scissors and probably three minutes in I'd mess up and start over …

Emily Byrne: Absolutely. I wasn't like that when I first started. I mean, with the caricature, 30 some years ago, I had to pencil it first, I would have to pencil a guideline for me to then marker in which of course adds to the time, but I've probably drawn 100,000 people at this point. So I can talk while I'm doing it, make small talk. Wait a minute, my computer just went there we go. But for me to have to actually think is the difference between what I'm doing with you here requires me having a real thought process making small talk I can do but that's not the same kind of thing.

Dan: So let's talk about skill. So let's talk about formal education. How important do you think it is for someone to have formal education in some kind of drawing art related, going for an art degree? How important is that versus maybe tutorials online or books or just practice, practice, practice? How important is that formal education?

Emily Byrne: Well, in my case, I don't have any formal education. I have what you just said in the second part, I have practice, practice, practice, I have books, when the internet came along, I had that and that was a big explosion of information there because there's very limited. If you go to an art store or a library, there's hardly any books about caricature. And the ones that were there when I started were old, they were from the 50s and Mad magazine was a better educator to me than buying a book that was how to do caricatures because you could look at all those wonderful Mort Drucker caricatures that of all the satires they did in Mad magazine and most caricatures my age will agree that Mad magazine and the people who work for it, some of whom I know, are a big reason why caricature is a big thing now. So yeah, I would say, although I know people that are highly educated caricature artists, and the drawing stuff was great, but they don't specifically teach exaggeration in art colleges as far as I know.

Dan: Let's talk about resources. And you might not know of any off the top of your head. But if someone wants to get started doing this, what is the absolute best place to get started in your opinion to learn how to do this?

Emily Byrne: Off the top of my head, there is a book that Tom Richmond who worked for Mad magazine many, many years, it's called the Mad Art of of Caricature. It's one of the best books ever written by a former Mad magazine artist. And it goes into way more specific stuff than the earlier books that I'd seen on the subject. The other thing is sit on a train and draw people sit on an airplane and draw people. If you don't have a family that's willing participants just go out in public and draw people. It's experience is the best teacher.

Dan: Before you talked about fairs, so once you actually kind of get started doing this, and you feel confident that you can try to try to make some money doing this. What kind of resources are out there to find locations to find fairs or something like that? How can someone get started with that part of it?

Emily Byrne: Well, when I started, I was limited in the area that I could do it. There are people who have companies that travel to different fairs and put up all the stuff that they need the tent, the paint, the airbrushes, I mean, all that kind of stuff comes from a concession owner. When I was doing it, you know, I was a one person business just going to local fairs like hospital fairs in Chester County and things like that. You just need to know what your best medium is. At the time with me, it was chalks and markers. You buy your spot, they give you your spot, you show up all week, you draw people and then if you're there for a few years, you'll have a following people will come back to get their children drawn by you every year. You'll have a built in customer base, but extrapolate that to you know, big national companies that go to state fairs and things like that and they are a thriving business. So if you get good enough, you can work for one of them and then you'll travel and stay with other artists and do big giant state fairs.

Dan: You mentioned staying local, getting started like being local and that made me think of this. Are there any opportunities to create caricatures to then be distributed online to people? Do you do that at all? Is there a market for that? Do you know?

Emily Byrne: I don't do that because I'm so busy with live events and kind of doing commissions is to me is kind of like homework, which I was not a big fan of when I was younger. There are people who do digital caricatures by order, where you send them a photo and they do it and then they email it to you and stuff like that. But I far prefer the live experience, which also brings me to the AI question, which I don't know if you were going to bring that up. People who perform in public might be a really valuable resource later when you know, there are places where you can go online and get an AI caricature done, but the quality is terrible. Humans want to see other humans do amazing things. So I'm hoping that my live work isn't going to dry up because people want to play with AI.

Dan: I agree with that. I think everything with AI is very interesting. I spoke to several, probably a dozen people or so at this point that we talked about AI in some capacity. And my general stance is that it's very useful as a tool as an augmentation on something else that you're already doing. But when it comes to a fully baked solution, it is not there by any stretch from my experience. I don't think live performers are going anywhere anytime soon, which is great. Right. Like that there is something to be said about that, you know, the live drawing of people or live music or anything, you know, going to see a musical or a play or something like that. It's a completely different experience.

Emily Byrne: Right. Who wants to go up to a kiosk and have it print out, you know, something that it did with your photo rather than sit in front of someone and you have no idea what they're going to do to you. And everyone in the line is being entertained by what's going on on your easel as well. So you're not just doing it for the person you're drawing, it's everybody in the vicinity who's looking and then everyone who sees it after they walk away with it. So I call it a ripple effect entertainment because it's not happening just at my easel. And that's why it's so great for trade shows. Everyone wants to see the caricature artists at a trade show. One of my friends just did one where they were near an AI. Someone had an AI thing at their booth. And it was near a live caricature artist. Guess who had more people? They were preferred over a kiosk. Which isn't saying much.

Dan: So let's let's talk about the business side of things. And I mentioned this before to other people, you know, a lot of times when people start their own business, it's more about the passion that they have for doing something, whether it's creating caricatures or music or whatever, they don't, typically, they don't get into business for the business side of things. So my question for you, how did you learn the business side of things? How did you augment those? How did you fill those knowledge gaps when it came to the business side of things?

Emily Byrne: That's the part I don't like about my job. But it came easier because there were far more books about that aspect of it. Then, you know, I had to find ones that fit in with my super specialized niche, like I was telling you before. The best thing that ever happened to me was this software that I use that you want me to tell you the name, it's called, I can? It's 17 hats.com. And it's specificly for one person businesses. So it doesn't go into payroll or all that other stuff. When you have employees, it is for you to schedule yourself and do contracts and invoices and everything in this one app that does it all for me. So once I found that, and I was like one of the first people to get in on it. You pay by, it's monthly. I'm so thrilled because it's made just for people like me. It's all photographers and artists and musicians that are on there mostly. So that was a big help. But it was a struggle before because all the books teaching you how to do it were overkill for what I needed to do. So you have you have to find where your level of understanding for business stuff goes with your business.

Dan: That's a really good resource. Thank you for sharing that. So we talked about the fairs. And I want to jump back to them briefly. When it comes to finding the fairs, finding the local ones, is there like an online resource for that to just keep your eyes open? It's like, Oh, Strawberry Festival two weeks. Like, how do you ...

Emily Byrne: It was pre-internet. So I didn't have that resource. So I just asked people, you know, I drove around and they're all in the summer or in the fall, usually. So I'm like, where? Who's having something? What can I be in whether it was, you know, just Friday and Saturday, or if it was a whole, I only did one week long fair when I was starting out, most of the rest were just one offs or just the weekends. But no, I pretty much knew where they all were, you had to send them a check, you know, with an application form. And they would let you know, if you were in everything was regular mail back then. It seems like the dark ages now.

Dan: I can't remember if we talked about this before I started recording or after. But you were talking about how much you're booked right now you have all of I think it's that September, October completely booked pretty much.

Emily Byrne: Yeah, the weekends.

Dan: How far in advance do people need to book someone like you? Is it like six months out, three months out? What's that typically like for you?

Emily Byrne: It varies because most weddings and big corporate things that require a lot of planning are booked months ahead. I mean, weddings can be years ahead. I have things booked in 2027 already, not a lot. But if I have the time open, like the ones that are calling now and asking for things are weekday things like college things and fall festivals at like senior community living places and things like that. If my time is open on the calendar, I will take it. But my weekend stuff tends to go. Yeah, like right now I have no weekends open till the mid November, which is a slow period because it's Thanksgiving and it's gearing up for Christmas. So my calendar is kind of predictable. But in a way it's you know, you never do know like if I want time off, I have to block it off. I have figure out what I want to do for me and say okay, I am not taking any bookings this period of time. So it varies as to when people can book me. I'll take it if I'm open.

Dan: Now one question I like to ask people is that I'd like to identify different barriers to entry. So determining if there's this one quality about a particular job that a person doesn't like, you know, this particular job isn't for them. So I was talking to Amanda Snyder, she's a midwife. And I asked her the same question. And she said, you know, if you're not a good communicator, this job is it for you. There's a lot of blood. This job is not for you. So my question for you being a caricature and silhouette artist, what is one thing that if a person doesn't like this, this is not for them?

Emily Byrne: Generally speaking, there's always going to be a person somewhere who doesn't like caricatures and doesn't want to do it. Or they may sit for you and think that they like it. And then they don't like what they get. And they may register that subtly or they may register it overtly. You've got to be prepared for people to not like it. With my own particular artwork, usually what happens with mine is that someone might look at it and say, Oh, that's not me. And everyone around is going to look at and go, Oh, yes it is. So I have audience backup on that. But you've got to be prepared for that. Otherwise, the other aspects are you need to be militant about your logistics. You know, when you're booked, being there on time, having everything you need to do it, like, you need to have the right paper, the right size bags. I mean, one time I showed up at an event and I didn't have something I forget how I, how did I, I showed up without my chalks at one of them, I had to run to a Michael's that was nearby and buy a new set and get back in time. And luckily, it was a wedding if I remember rightly, I had gotten there so early that luckily the Michaels was nearby, or it wouldn't have worked. But I had time to go get this stuff, get back to the country club set up and be ready before the reception started. And after that, I was like, I never letting that happen again. I had taken my chalks out to do something at home with them and had forgotten to repack them into my gig supply stuff. So logistics are important with this.

Dan: That's interesting you mentioned the people's reactions. And that's something I hadn't considered until you actually mentioned and that makes complete sense. And it reminded me of and I forget who it was. It was I spoke to an author last year. And the person was talking about when you go to the book signings, you have to be prepared people might not show up, they might not stop over and say hello and ask for a book signing and you need to be okay with that. It's kind of a similar thing where it's…

Emily Byrne: exactly it's exactly the same thing. You've got to be prepared for people to not it doesn't happen to me very often. And there's actually a whole group of artists that are on TikTok that specialize in offensive caricatures where the whole paper might be someone's nose and the rest of them is tiny. They have a huge following because they are showing the reactions of people that's their whole TikTok is people's reactions to extreme caricature. And a lot of people are asking me lately, do you know these artists in Hawaii? And I'm like, Yeah, I've met them a few times. There's really sweet people you'd never be able to tell from just looking at them that they are capable of such, you know, vicious caricature, but they have raised the standing of caricature. Everyone that's young, that's on TikTok pretty much knows about them. They have millions of followers. So thank you. It helps me.

Dan: Does anyone ever come up to you and ask you for something like that?

Emily Byrne: Yes, yeah, they do. Some people want I have some friends in the local area that do those type of no mercy caricatures and they definitely have their place and it's a spectrum. It is mild to wild. And I'm kind of I'm probably in the middle. I hate to say I'm in the middle but I'm I'm not wild but I'm not totally mild either.

Dan: I had no idea these things existed. That's absurd. I love it. I love it.

Emily Byrne: I'll send you some I'll send you some images of what a mild to wild spectrum looks like.

Dan: That would be awesome. Emily, I am running a little short on time. But one thing I'd like to do whenever I'm speaking with someone I like to give them the opportunity to talk about a project they're working on a cause they believe, more about their business. So if there's something specific you'd like to discuss the floor is yours.

Emily Byrne: There so many things just just I think what I said about AI and the human experience of getting a caricature. I mean, so many people say to me at a wedding they'll say I never would have thought of this as being an entertainment as a wedding reception. And I usually tell them, it's like this at every wedding, everyone thoroughly enjoys this. But the reason you don't know that is because there's so few caricature artists relative to other things in the world. So you would have to hit someone else's wedding that has one of the small number of us working it to know So if you run into them and you realize the joy this brings to people, that's how it spreads. You go home and say, well, I saw this caricature artist at so and so's wedding, let's do that at our daughter's wedding. And that's how this keeps this whole big group of people giving joy every five minutes to someone keeps proliferating. That's the part that means the most to me the reactions of people.

Dan: I think it's really cool seeing that you know, it has got to be such a such a great feeling when you show them the first time and the surprise on their face and the joy and everything. And if they're friends with them, the friend's reaction, that's just got to be…

Emily Byrne: Alot of my Instagram is people's reactions as well. I mean, I don't go for the extreme ones. I like to say mine are portraits with a twist, you know, or or they're… I had another word for it, but I can't think of it right now. But I like to bring joy to people. And that's the best part of my job.

Dan: Emily, that is awesome. I'll make sure get some of those images from you from your Instagram. I'll put them inside of the video here so people can see all the great art that you're doing. I'll also get links from you. I'll put them all over the place. So when people are trying to find you, they can easily find you.

Emily Byrne: All right.

Dan: Emily, it's been awesome having you on Time We Discuss and we learned what it's like being a caricature artist and a silhouette artist.

Emily Byrne: Thank you. I appreciate it so much.