The Life of a Caricature Artist Featuring Kenny Durkin!

Drawing ain’t easy. Drawing something recognizable takes effort. Drawing people is overwhelming. Exploiting peoples’ unique features in a fun and exaggerated way for their entertainment is downright insane. That’s where Kenny Durkin comes in.

Kenny Durkin by Kenny Durkin

I’ve sung Kenny’s praises before and he’s no stranger to this blog or me pestering him for all sorts of things. He graciously agreed to me bombarding him with questions again, but before that, let’s take a quick refresher course. Kenny is a cartoonist who studied Illustration at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He’s performed live caricature entertainment at events across the United States for over 20 years, and drawn caricatures at Walt Disney World retail locations and special events for 15 years. He has his cartoons on apparel for AMC's Duck Dynasty, Disney's The Muppets,  and The Jim Henson Company, writes and illustrates his own online comic strip Father of the Brood, and is a proud member of the prestigious National Cartoonists Society and an award-winning Gold member of  the International Society of Caricature Artists. On a more personal note; Kenny was one of the key heads of the design team for ToughPigs Great Muppet Mural, and has been a patient and wonderful friend who has helped me out personally with tons and tons of other projects. I cannot hype this man up enough because his artistic talent is only matched by his kindness and sense of humor.

Kenny and I hanging at Gene Barretta’s home, May 2015

So let’s start with the basics: how did you get into drawing? And how did you get so good?!

Kenny: I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. The first drawing I can recall was of Kermit and Grover. I was born in 1971 and back then, there was no way of recording a television show to watch later. When the Sesame Street episode of the day was over, I still wanted to spend more time with my "friends", so I drew them. I found that was a great way to express myself creatively, and why Kermit still pops up in my drawings to this day.

Kermit the Frog as Indiana Jones and gorgeous caricatures of Frank Oz and Jim Henson

All that said, I still don't think I'm "good" at it. I think it's like having an athletic ability or being a musician. You're born with an inclination, but you still have to work at it. You have to put in the time and practice every day. And you have to be willing to fail a lot. I'm obsessed with learning to draw better, so I watch instructional videos, take courses, look at art instruction books, and I'm friends with a lot of other artists so I can push myself to soak up as much info as I can. And I've trained myself to when I'm not drawing, I'm OBSERVING. I'm looking at trees, buildings, people, animals, vehicles, clouds, everything I see and deconstructing them. I'm breaking them down into simple shapes and filing them away in the visual encyclopedia in my brain. Then I can pull them out to work out later on paper. In a way, it's a thing that I can't shut off and won't leave me alone!

We all know Jim Henson is a major creative inspiration to you, but who else inspires your artistic talent?

There are a whole lot of people who inspire me. It would be impossible to list them all. I think starting out, it was newspaper cartoonists like Charles Schultz, Walt Kelly, Hank Ketcham, Dik Browne, Jim Davis, Mort Walker, Lynn Johnston, and so many others. Later it was Gary Larson, Berke Breathed, Bill Watterson, John Hambrock, and WAYNO.

MAD Magazine was huge for me. I gobbled up everything I could from artists like Jack Davis, Sam Viviano, Paul Coker, Mort Drucker, Sergio Aragones, Don Martin, Al Jaffee, and Tom Richmond. I wasn’t much of a comic book guy, but I sought out more cartoony titles like Uncle Scrooge, Groo the Wanderer, and Zooniverse. For animation, it was of course Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Chuck Jones, Fleischer Studios, Hanna Barbara, Don Bluth, Richard Williams, etc.

But beyond cartoons, I suppose there’s not much that DOESN’T inspire me. Anyone involved with the process of creation interests me. Musicians, singers, actors, directors, costume designers, prop builders, effects artists, folk artists and so many others. I’m all over the place.

The casts of Seinfeld and Stranger Things

When and how did you realize your knack for caricatures?

There was a magazine for kids called Dynamite that had celebrity caricatures by Sam Viviano. That was my gateway to the art of caricature. I followed him over to MAD Magazine which was a caricature–heavy publication. I studied what those artists were doing. I would ask myself, “The caricature looks like the person. Now WHY is that so? What is the artist doing that makes the likeness so strong?”. So I’d try drawing actors I’d see on T.V., friends and family, and teachers in school. My parents would get notes from my teachers saying what a great student I was because I was always taking notes. Little did they know, I was actually drawing them!

Caricatures of Muppet performers Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz, Richard Hunt, Frank Oz, Jim Henson, and Louise Gold

What kind of lessons or classes did you have to take to go pro?

I was fortunate enough to have art classes all through grade school. In high school I took every class that was even remotely connected to art, like printmaking and drafting. I did a lot of scenery and prop building for school plays and musicals. I took classes when offered at museums like mask making.

I went to Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and studied Illustration and Graphic Design. I also took classes there on Photography, Sculpture, Figure Drawing, Color Theory and Early German Film for some reason.

I’m still constantly educating myself. I watch videos, take online courses, read art instruction books, go to seminars, and take workshops. If you want to EARN, you’ve got to LEARN!

How quickly does it take to draw a single caricature?

It depends. When I’m drawing at events, the task is to draw as many guests as possible. I can draw a shoulders–up caricature in black and white in 1–2 minutes if I have to. At most events I draw faces and bodies in black and white, which take about 5 minutes.

A retail caricature face and body in color is about 12–15 minutes. Studio caricatures, depending on what the client and I have worked out, can take days. 

Steve Buscemi and Daniel Radcliffe

Drawing people well enough to recognize them is hard. Drawing their more prominent features to the extreme and still be able to recognize them is ludicrous. Drawing people with exaggerated features so that they’re still recognizable and doing it fast is impossible. How do you do all of that?

Practice. It takes time to get your speed up. When you first start out, your instinct is to pencil everything in, ink over the top and then erase the pencil.Once you develop a system that works, you won’t need to rely as much on the pencil (or at all). Experimenting with materials, (paper, drawing implements) that can improve your speed. Recognizability is more important than speed. In the end, it has to resemble the person you’re drawing.

Have you ever drawn someone and they reacted negatively because they felt you offended them?

Thankfully not often. One time when I was only a couple of years in, a subject got so mad at how I drew him that he lurked around until I had closed up and he followed me out to my car. Luckily security took care of him.

I did a studio piece for someone one time and after repeated redraws because she claimed it didn’t look like her, I actually TRACED her photograph. When she still insisted it didn’t look like her, I told her what I had done and she went with the first drawing I did.

You have to go into drawing caricatures knowing you’re not going to please everyone all the time. Statistically, it has to happen. So I’ll still get the occasional eye roll, but for the most part, people are pleased. They know what they stood in line for.

Is being sensitive to how someone might react to your caricature something that you consider when you draw them or is that mindset too restrictive and it’s better to believe that they should be aware it’s your job to exaggerate their likeness?

It’s tricky. When someone hires you to draw at their event, you don’t want to be the one insulting their guests, or making the host or booking agency look bad. It’s just not professional. You also don’t want to fall into the trap of drawing “genericatures” or drawing the same way over and over. You have to be sensitive and have empathy. You need to know when to lay back and be “safe” and when to kick it into gear and go for it. It’s an important skill that you have to develop over time. 

Father of the Brood 2023 and 2018 when my daughter and I made a guest appearance!

Wow! And there it is! Proof that Kenny Durkin isn’t just really good at what he does, but why he’s the best there is! Make sure you visit Kenny’s website for more great art, but also follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube too!

Thanks so much again, Kenny for taking the time to share your story and talent! I am so grateful for you and our friendship. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and come back on Friday for a new blog post!

What No One Will Tell You [But You Should Know] About Art Theft

When I was in my early twenties, I drove my dad’s 1986 Lincoln Continental that I “improved” by attaching a cheap portable CD player (featuring the latest anti–skip technology) with velcro to the dashboard that then ran a cassette adapter to the stereo system. It was the early aughts and I had a humongous portfolio of homemade mix CDs thanks to Napster and Limewire. I know, I know; I’m even cooler than you ever imagined.

2002

Less than a week after pimping my ride, someone crashed a brick through the window and ripped the CD player and portfolio from inside the Lincoln. The door was unlocked, the CD player retailed for $!0, the window replacement cost me $400, I was picking shards of glass from the car for the next three years, and truth be told I was more embarrassed how much Spice Girls the thief would discover on my CD mixes than anything else. This is a relatively mild case, but theft is such a personal crime that it’s hard not to feel extreme anger and frustration over even minor infractions.

The irony is how little we all think about that individual connection. I just admitted the hardest part was getting over the theft of the music I illegally downloaded (and still had the MP3s on my hard drive back home anyway). So this is all to say no one is truly blameless, and to my topic at hand, we’ve all taken part in online art theft in particular to some degree. Maybe you downloaded something from Google to put in a PowerPoint presentation or make a fun birthday card for a family member. I’ve seen tons of Facebook and Twitter banners or avatars that certainly weren’t created by the user or credited to the artists that did. Consider this blog post your public shaming and absolution on the matter. May the almighty and merciful Lord grant you indulgence, absolution, and remission of your sins. Amen.

Seriously though, the main reason I want to write about online art theft is to show you just how poorly the odds are stacked against the creators, why it affects everyone, and how you can help. There are so many insanely frustrating and infuriating stories that I reached out to four of my artist friends who have experienced art theft so that I could get help to paint you a picture of how common this actually is and submit real experiences for your consideration.

Justin Piatt is a young up and coming artist who was flabbergasted to find someone else he did not know selling his art on various merchandise on RedBubble.com

“I feel frustrated, helpless, and taken advantage of. I was slightly flattered at first because I've never had this happen before and it almost feels like validation that my artwork is finally good enough to get stolen, but that quickly faded.

Now I just think about how any money, however little it might be, that these thieves receive from this is money that could have gone toward my rent or taking care of my wife. And it makes me mad because my struggling so much to make a career out of being a ‘starving artist’, and I'm literally having the food taken out of my mouth.”

The theme of being flattered at first is definitely a running one, but similarly most artists also know how difficult it is to sell their own stuff. People who just steal content tend to be a lot more savvy when it comes to online sales and can turn a profit quickly. I should mention that Red Bubble is actually pretty quick when it comes to taking down stolen art, but that’s where the good deeds stop. The seller is usually free to continue using their shop and whatever sales they’ve made using stolen art does not affect their remittance. Red Bubble also insists you not put these sellers on blast but rather let them handle things.

“Handling things” is where $#!t really hits the fan. There’s basically two ways to go about calling a thief out. Neither works well. The first is old west style, contacting the individual directly. Now keep in mind you’ve just found some schmuck who is openly and arrogantly selling your art, so realistically, you’re most likely in a foul mood. “Hey buttface! That’s mine! Take it down or I’ll call my lawyer!” Yeah right. Often, the seller can actually file a claim against you for harassment and now you’re the one on trial. Plus, hostility is usually met with more hostility. When you have art stolen and the chance to confront the seller directly, you have to eat a larger–than–humanly acceptable slice of humble pie and politely ask them to remove the stolen item for sale, “Please and thank you, hugs and kisses.” Barf. My personal experience is that 9 times out of 10, they’ll play nice… for the time being, but now you have to keep vigilant watch on this kleptomaniac, because they will almost certainly do it again.

Now to be fair, there are very rare instances where online art theft turns out to be a misunderstanding, or at the very least, a lovely kind of ignorance. My good friend Jamie Carroll tells this sweet story:

“Someone was printing a Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem image (a licensed piece that I created for Disney and Acme Archives' Dark Ink department) and putting it on socks. I contacted the site and the person responsible. It turned out to be a couple of kids raising money for some school thing. They were just using Googled images. There's a lot of that. They took it down, I received an apology and a pair of socks.”

They also just might not respond. Why should they? There’s the likelihood the site they’re selling your stuff on doesn’t allow direct communication anyway, so now it’s on you to report theft to the web host. Man, get ready to have even more of your precious time taken from you. As mentioned, Print On Demand (POD) sites like Red Bubble have links to submit Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Takedown Notices that don’t even question things. If someone says it’s a problem, they’re not interested in pursuing the matter further and you’re more or less done. Larger corporations however have the time and power to let sellers sell, and that’s more money for them! When I contacted Amazon about someone selling my art without my permission, they required I prove the art was mine. I sent the original link I posted the art to, a ToughPigs article showcasing the work, and this website as proof of my identity and profession as an artist. They proceeded to tell me that this was not enough to verify my claim and insisted I refill out their exceptionally long and tedious form again for re–submission. When I protested, the email chain closed and suggested I apply for Amazon Brand Registry—something that might work if the thief wasn’t selling my fan art of Kermit the Frog who is already trademarked with the Walt Disney Company and if I was willing to pay between $225–$400. Thanks, I hate it!

My email correspondence with Amazon.

The amount of time one has to devote to fighting online theft is exhausting. As Jamie explains;

“I  get pretty cheesed, but there's little I can do most of the time. Trying to get justice for art theft is like a full time job of whack-a-mole. I report the ones I can, but then let it go.“

Of all my artist friends, Kenny Durkin probably gets ripped off the most. He has told me he finds his work being sold without his permission on a daily basis, even going so far as to say, "I can teach anyone how to get their art stolen. I'm really good at that." Like Justin, Kenny was initially flattered and even encouraged by others to view any theft as flattery, but his view on the subject changed very quickly.

"I went through a huge phase where I got really angry every single time it happened, even to the point of never wanting to post artwork ever again. Basically 'taking my ball and going home'. Now I see it as a minor annoyance, it seems like most of the time the stealing of my artwork is done by bot accounts. So I try to shut them down the best I can."

Photo taken by Kevin Williams and Lin Workman, 2007

Another form of online art theft doesn't even take potential money from the artists pockets, but rather goes viral and takes away something arguably more important: their name! I always get a kick when someone on Instagram (especially an official account or someone with lots of followers) posts my art, but then feel like a drowning rat trying to get the account to credit or even just tag me. I'm willing to bet paper money most people reading this blog have seen this very touching tribute of Kermit reaching out and touching a photograph of Jim Henson. It's so good that it's just assumed it was created and owned by The Henson Company or Walt Disney Studios. In fact, it was staged and shot by my friend Kevin Williams and his associate Lin Workman. This picture has been passed around so much that Kevin actually wrote about its origin and continued life around the web that I strongly recommend you read.

"I guess the first thing was getting over the shock that so many people liked it that they were sharing and sending it all over the world, ignoring that it originated with our little team here in Memphis.

Friends noticed the image getting posted everywhere and would tag me in it, and I would follow through with 'Here's our story.' Eventually, I wrote the article to link to just because it was easier than repeating the story every time."

Kevin basically threw his hands up and said, "Here, please read this!" Jamie again succinctly explains how discovering online art theft over and over again weighs an artist down:

"Friends notify me all of the time about bootlegs and, to be honest, I'd rather not know. It just puts me in an angry and helpless place where I want to do something, but can't."

Online art theft is so burdensome to creators that they feel helpless to a point of giving up or changing their online presence completely. That can lead to creative slumps or a desire to not grace an online audience with something that can truly make someone else's day. And none of that even comes close to dealing with the stress and frustration over what to do when an artist learns their work has been stolen. Just finding the time to fight a battle that will usually end in defeat is more than should be asked of someone who didn't even want to take part in this problem in the first place.

So what can you do? First and foremost, support artists directly. If you want something specific, either commission your favorite artist via DMs or email or find out if they have an online store. Those that do will have links readily available on their own websites or in the descriptions of their social media accounts.

My dad wanted a coffee mug of a bootleg Chef, so I made him one myself instead.

Try and avoid products from ads on social media. They almost always sell stolen art. Even items that look official usually have no affiliation with the intellectual properties (IPs) they're selling or especially the artists that created them. Facebook in my experience is infamous for selling stuff like this. As a hardcore Muppet fan, I can tell you no official merchandise of The Swedish Chef saying, "Vert Da Furk" would ever get approval from any board of directors associated with the property. All they need is a clean looking website and no one thinks twice.

Finally, if you see someone's art being sold that you know does not belong to the seller, don't just notify the artist, submit a DMCA Takedown Notice yourself! The more voices fighting an issue tend to get noticed quicker. If you see someone post art they didn't create (primarily because they're not an artist), politely ask them to credit the artist. If you want to post someone else's art, most artists will be thrilled at the attention but only if you make it clear who the creator is.

Many thanks to Justin, Jamie, Kenny, and Kevin for contributing to this post. Please check out their stuff and follow them on social media because they are super talented and genuinely wonderful humans the world could use more of.

Justin Piatt: UzzyWorks.com and @uzzyworks on Instagram
Jamie Carroll: jvcarroll.com and @jvcarroll4 on Instagram
Kevin Williams: muleycomix.blogspot.com and muleyshow.com
Kenny Durkin: kennydurkin.com and @thekennydurkin on Instagram and @Durkinworks on Twitter