Who are
you?
I'm Alfie
Deliss -
Mr
Sketchum
is the stage name that I use..although
I don't actually get up on stages. Born
and raised
in
South
Kensington, I did a ten-year stretch at the
French
Lycée
there,
then
studied at
Chelsea
College
of Art
& Design
(click
here for
caricatures of the tutors (!)).
What do
you do?
I'm a party caricaturist.
I get booked to entertain guests
at social gatherings like
private parties,
weddings,
corporate
events, that
sort of
thing -
all over
the UK but
mainly in
London, and occasionally abroad. I
draw
'cartoon
portraits'
at
accelerated
lightning
speed
(the
velocity
of
lightning
boltswithout
the zigzags) and give them away free to guests as I go along.
Do
you charge for the drawings?
Sketching
provocative portraits of innocent partygoers you've
never met before in nothing flat is hard enough
without having to get money out of them as well!
Unlike the caricatures one gets done on the street in
places like London's West End, mine are presented to
their subjects absolutely free.
Have you ever really offended anyone?
Fortunately people know it's just a bit of fun. I keep an eye out
for the general atmosphere as well as the individual
personalities of guests, and can sense when the mood
is perfect for outright cartoon comedy, and when it's
more appropriate to do a more delicate form of
thumbnail portrait. I usually end up doing a
combination of both.
How long
have you
been doing
this?
I went
freelance
in 1999,
but
sketched
caricatures
long
before.
When I was
about
eleven I
got sent
to receive
an
"engueulade"
(French for a b*ll*cking) from the
headmaster
for doing
a comic
strip that
depicted
our maths
teacher Monsieur
Tagariste
("Taga")
blinding
the
fidgety
pupils at
the back
of the
class by
angrily throwing
chalk at them, and
decapitating
the front
row with a swoosh of his
steel
rule.
I took my first booking
at a
chaotic
"Bachelor & Spinster" Ball
whilst at
Chelsea College
of Art
way back in 1991, so in fact you could say I've
been a caricaturist for 27 years. I
got a degree in illustration, then did some 2D
animation training...then began having fun doing this.
With twenty years of experience
as a
professional
"live" (on-the-spot/walkabout/close-up/not quite dead yet)
caricature artist
working exclusively at events,
delightfully wicked but also kind "portraits with the volume turned up", and an incredibly
pleasant, modest personality, I'm starting to get the hang
of it...
Does art
run in the
family?
My
grandfather
Leo Delitz
was a
Viennese,
I suppose what you might call "elevated
society"
(!) portrait
painter.
When the
Nazis came
along with
their message of peace and love, the
family
weren't
quite
convinced,
and so
left
Austria to
it and
came to
London.
My father & his brother
joined the
British
Army here and in case they were captured & shot for treason (!),
adapted
their name
to Deliss
when they
volunteered
for the
Glider
Pilot
Regiment.
My
Parisian
mother,
Michèle
Deliss, was a
designer
who had a
fabulous dress shop
in
Beauchamp
Place,
Knightsbridge,
in the
sixties
and early
seventies.
She would
sketch
fluid,
graceful
designs
with a
black
(Tempo)
felt-tip
on sheets
of typing
paper, one
after the
other,
which (in
some ways
at least -
she made
the heads
smaller!)
is
ostensibly
similar to
what I do
now.
I'm on the frayed edge of a
long string
of wayward
artistic
eccentrics.
My cousin
Max is a
highly
regarded
post-bohemian
restorer
of
sometimes
esoteric
Renaissance
masters,
and my big
sister
Clémentine
is an art
practice
theorist,
curator
and
publisher.
Do guests
have to
pose?
They can
if they
like, but
for me
encouraging
them to
interact
works
better. I
work fast
and
fortunately
people
seem to
find me
funny so
they -
literally
- get
drawn into
the
situation;
if guests
are
relaxed,
chatting
and having
fun
they're
far more
likely to
reveal
positive
and often
funny or
quirky
aspects of
their
natural
selves,
which is
what I try
to
capture.
How long
does each
portrait
take?
Five
minutes is average
average -
that said
I can do
some
faster.
Sketching
more than
one person
per page
speeds
things up
even more.
If, in a
relatively
informal
situation,
a group
tells me
to draw
everyone,
to
expedite
and comply
(to give
them
exactly
what they
want
and to
not offend
by
refusal..!),
I do super-quick,
smaller
"schoolyard"
sketches
that are
instantly
recognisable
and can be
hilarious
precisely
because
they're
bare-boned.
What size do you work &
which
materials
do you
use?
I never use invisible ink because
you never know when you've run out, er,
just as it's impossible to tell when bagpipes need tuning,.
I usually
sketch A4
size but
I'm
perfectly
happy to
work
larger or
smaller. I
use
felt-tip
"brushpens"
with black and grey inks
on heavy laser
paper/card.
Brushpens
bend and taper to a fine tip (just as an artist's
paintbrush does), meaning that with one pen you can
get many variations in line.
What are
your
influences?
I like
the work of
Phil May,
André
Franquin,
Reiser,
Wolinski,
Spy,
Tintoretto,
Honoré
Daumier,
Dave the
Chimp,
Mr Wim,
James
Gillray,
John
Tenniel,
Paul Moyse,
Steve Bell,
Martin
Rowson,
Peter
Brookes
&
Dave Brown,
John Singer Sargent,
Henry Tonks,
Elzie
Segar
(creator
of Popeye),
Gilbert
Shelton,
John Hölmstrom,
Ralph
Steadman
&
Gerald
Scarfe,
Steve
Ditko,
Jake &
Dinos
Chapman,
Jack Kirby,
Robert
Crumb,
Gotlib,
Tex Avery,
Milt Kahl,
David Low...there's
more, but
my mind's
suddenly
gone
blank!
Where are
you based?
Dalston in east London, but Mr Sketchum
takes my Thermos™
and I all
across the
UK, and
occasionally
beyond.
I'm all
over the
place!
Do we get
to keep
the
drawings?
Naturally!
Guests
receive a
souvenir
of the
event
which is
more
them than
they are,
free of
charge,
and which
will make
them
either
smile or
wince for
years to
come.
How
much is it
to book
you and
how do we
go about
it?
The going
rate, and
booking is
simple
- fill in the form below & I'll ping a quote off to you. You can also
check my
booking info.
page
-
it should
have all
the
information
you need - if not,
feel free
to ask.
Do you
enjoy your
work?
Yes, because the guests do, and surviving
more or less just by doing drawings
is
something
of a
miracle. As my mother
used to
rather dryly
say of me
~ "He's
alright when
he's
drawing!"
07719
262736
~
alfie@sketchum.co.uk
~
Feel free to call or email me, Alfie, or if you prefer Mr Sketchum (!)
- or for a quick quote please use
the enquiry form
below ~
Fluent French & German spoken here
Website contents regularly archived. Write your own copy.
Website by
London Caricaturist Mr Sketchum/Alfie Deliss
Text and
images copyright © Alfie Deliss/Mr Sketchum 1999-2019 ~ All
rights reserved.
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