Student Testimonial by Dan Baldwin

As many of you know, I teach a course for Schoolism. The title of my course is "The Art of Caricature", but the course covers much more than caricature. I teach my drawing and painting techniques as well as anatomy and much more. My next course for Schoolism starts February 6th 2012, to sign up or to get more info, click HERE.

The piece above of Ron Paul was painted by one of my students Dan Baldwin, and as you can see, he's quite the talented artist himself. Dan worked very hard and continues to do so. Check out his blog and say hello! Dan's blog.

Dan wrote a testimonial about my course so I thought I would share it here. Please feel free to check out Dan's blog and write him as well!

Dan Baldwin Testimonial
Ever wonder what it might have been like to sit in the studio corner of J.C. Leyendecker, James Montgomery Flagg, Norman Rockwell, or any illustration giant of the past? Can you imagine peering over their shoulder to simply watch their approach to concept, technique, and business? What if they actually stopped their work, with deadlines looming, turned around and began a long, personal dialog about your path as an artist? What value would you place on that experience?

Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Or does it?

As I was in the midst of my Art of Caricature course taught by Jason Seiler, I began to realize that this was happening – right now, and with me. Throughout the course, and in the midst of finishing illustrations for major publications like Rolling Stone, ADWEEK, and The NY Observer, Jason stopped and “turned around.”

During this time I was truly amazed with the sincerity and generosity of Jason. He took the time to answer specific questions, and discussed broader topics that related to art, business, and technology. He shared amazing personal experiences, and tied those stories into the development of my work. Jason offered focused feedback that only immense knowledge, years of experience, and mind-blowing talent could provide - and this only describes the critique portion of the overall course.

Although I was only one student in a full class, I felt very much as if this course was crafted just for me. I’m not sure whether to call this experience mentoring, apprenticeship, or simply a great curriculum delivered by an excellent teacher. What I do know is that years from now, I will be fortunate to say I spent time in the studio with an illustration giant...and you can’t place a value on that.

Schoolism LIVE Workshop Series presents: The Artist Master Class with Jason Seiler

Click HERE. to read more about the workshop.


"Jason Seiler is visiting Vancouver, Canada on February 25, 2012! His proven teaching methods on caricature will TRANSFORM your thinking and EVOLVE your level of art. With his mind expanding techniques and lectures you will leave looking at people in a whole new way!

If you missed the last Schoolism LIVE Vancouver workshop, definitely don't miss this one. Take the opportunity to see what everyone is talking about and purchase your tickets now!

Jason's illustrations have been featured as covers and interior pieces for Rolling Stone, TIME, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, MAD magazine, New Line Cinema, Universal Pictures, Aardman Animation, and Sony Imageworks, among others. Jason also worked as a character designer on Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, helping to create such characters as the Red Queen, the Tweedles, the Bandersnatch and more."

So long Kim Jong.

I'm going to miss this guys face, and body, and hair . . . mmmm, the glasses too . . . he was one of my favorites to draw, good night and good luck!

The Black Keys for Rolling Stone

The Black Keys for Rolling Stone! I'd like to say thank you to Steven at RS for thinking of me for this one.




Ever since I was 15 I dreamed of painting for Rolling Stone. This is my fourth painting for them and I hope to do many more. Besides the personal high of painting for RS, I am a fan of The Black Keys and have been listening to their music for years, so painting them for RS was quite the honor.

Wallstreet Bullsh@t.

Cover I painted this week for the New York Observer. This one was a rush.
(painted in a day and a half)

All in all I only had a day and a half to do this cover. "Life" happened, and so I lost a lot of time that I would have normally had. Another challenge with this one was that there isn't very good reference available of the judge. The judge needed a specific expression and in the two pictures I had of him, he was smiling, so I took pictures of myself and my friend Brian for expression reference. I had some fun with the lawyer character and used myself as the model. It was fun messing myself up! :) My favorite part of the whole piece was painting the Bull, the colors were a lot of fun to work on. All in all, I wish I could have had more time to work on everything . . . sometimes these quick turnarounds can really feel like a marathon and this one was no exception. There's not much time to step back and analyze, you have to tuck on and adjust as you go, and when the time is up, it's up.

Foreign Policy magazine

This was an interesting piece to work on. I was first asked to paint Nicolas Sarkozy and Henry Levy as "Rambo-like" figures, showing the French as strong warrior types because of their role in Libya. I thought it would be funnier to play a little more with the whole "French" thing. I also had not yet had the chance to paint Muammar Gaddafi for a publication and thought it would be fun to add him to the illustration, adding humor as well as a fun way to tell the story. Keep in mind, I started this job, two days before Gaddafi was killed. I thought it would be humorous to show the two Frenchmen being French, chilling out and so on with their wine and baguette's, I know, it's cliche, but it's funny too.

So, two days after I started the painting, Gaddafi was killed and the illustration was put on hold. I thought for sure that the illustration would be cut or at least the idea would have to be changed or something, but a day later, I was given the OK to continue on with the illustration. It felt strange starting an illustration before Gaddafi's death. I thought adding him would be funny, but while working on it, he was killed quite brutally and then on top of that, his mangled body was displayed on T.V. 24/7. So, what seemed like a funny illustration now felt morbid. Don't get me wrong, I feel he had it coming but nevertheless, it was a strange time to be working on this particular piece.

I realize that it's also strange that the illustration took as long as it did to come out, being that the story is old news now, but that's how it is some times. As for the background . . . there was never supposed to be a background. The idea was for it to be a simple spot illustration with a white background, but near the end I felt it would look better if I suggested the environment, if even just a little.

I had a lot of fun working on this piece and like most of my work these days, I didn't have near as much time as I would have liked, but that's the nature of the biz. So, I kept it painterly and suggested detail rather than labor over it, these are three great faces to play with and overall, I had a blast!