100 caricatures in a year

This blog was inspired by a readers poll in my local free paper The Capital Times, Wellington, NZ. The poll asked readers, "Should Wellington City Council spend $350,000 on a sculpture for the rugby world cup?" the result was quite resounding with 4% saying 'Yes' and 96% saying 'You must be dreamin'!' I responded as follows:

'So with a little over a year left to the world cup, as a semi professional caricaturist this is what I could do with the $350,000 they are going to spend on a sculpture. In those 52 or so weeks I could poduce 100, A3 sized, full colour caricatures of rugby legends. My salary for the year would be $60,000 plus say a generous printing and advertising budget of $10,000. The remaining $280,000 could go to community projects. There could be an exhibition of these caricatures launched to coincide with the world cup, where prints of the caricatures could be sold. The profits from the caricatures could be split between myself and more community projects. As Hot Chocolate once sang, 'Everyone's a winner baby!'

So this blog will follow my journey over the next year or so. I won't be able to complete 100 colour caricatures; a full time job and 2 kids under five will eat into my time a fair bit! However I reckon on doing 3 caricatures, one full colour, every couple of weeks. Here's the first batch. Enjoy and visit again soon.

Jonny Wilkinson

Brian O'Driscoll

Richie McCaw