A Cuban blogger friend, Tomas Estrada Palma, recently started cartooning and posting his cartoons. I was so impressed by his drawings that I contacted him so we could do an art exchange. I found out he lives relatively close-by, so we set up a meeting to allow me to do some sketches of him for a cartoon. He was kind enough to agree to do one of me (see link above).Tomas has the singular distiction of being the great-grandson of Cuba's first President, so I was a bit surprised that he was not fluent in Spanish--sadly, this is a common phenomenon among second generation immigrants and beyond--but he did share some stories about his family and I really enjoyed meeting him.
His greatest aficion seems to be politics and argument, so I drew two sketches of him from life, trying to distill what I think best defines his character, and then had to wait all week before I could find the time to do my cartoon. I finally got to it today and here it is.
This is one of the drawings in my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project put on by Art House that I hope will be exhibited in Atlanta and DC as well as a number of other venues. I understand it will be shown in DC at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Georgetown on March 3 & 4, 2009.
