Kids Learning About Norman Rockwell

Chip Mock

People expect that from a caricaturist. For 30 years, as a side job to his graphics illustrating work, the 49-year-old College Township resident has enlarged noses and shrunk ears in swift and humorous portraits done at parties and fairs. In a few minutes, he’ll size up and lampoon anybody, young or old.

This month, he’ll be up to his old tricks with his markers at the People’s Choice Festival in Boalsburg, a longtime gig among the dozens of summer festivals every year on his calendar.

Q How did you get started?

I’ve always drawn. I didn’t know what it was like not to draw. I went to kindergarten and couldn’t understand why the other kids’ pictures didn’t look like anything. Because back then, no one went to preschool. You just thought everyone could do it.

I grew up looking at Mad magazine, and there was a TV graphic ... John Johns did that for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Every Sunday, he’d do a movie star, and when I was in high school, I always drew portraits. I just gravitated to (them).

I could draw cartoons. I could draw people. I went to a commercial art program in high school, so I had art for four periods a day, for three years. That was terrific.

And then I went to the Art Institute, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. At the open house we went to, my parents and my aunt went, John Johns was there doing caricatures, and he was the guy that I had looked at his caricatures my whole life. And he was the president emeritus, I believe, at the time. He gave workshops at the Art Institute.

At the orientation, he had other students drawing with him, and they were in the lobby, and he’d throw his backpack on, and he’d be talking and doing this whole thing, and I said to my dad that I thought it would be a cool thing to do while I was here.

So it’s something I went looking for, and in my first quarter, I met a couple of guys who had done the Three Rivers Arts Festival the year before and who had done (Johns’) workshops. So before I went to John Johns’ workshop I had a little practice, and knew kind of what I was doing there. And I went to his workshop, which was a two-hour, after-school workshop. ... He had 100 kids or whatever trying out, and then he’d pick 40 to do the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and I was picked, and the rest is history.

Q Who were some of your other early influences?

I always liked Norman Rockwell. Norman Rockwell was a caricaturist. You know, he was a painter, but he was a painter and an illustrator who did oil paintings but they were caricatures because he took the ’50s and brought them to life with the gangly kids. That was caricatures. A lot of people didn’t consider him as a real master because he was an illustrator and he sold his magazine covers, but he was a caricaturist, in part. ... He told a good story.

Small City 4th of July Fireworks Display | Money Reasons

Traditionally my small city has had their 4th of July fireworks display on July 3rd, and this year was no exception.  The reasons they have it on July 3rd instead of the 4th is because they can hire a crew to set off the fireworks more cheaply than on the actual 4th of July, or so the theory goes…

This year’s firework display was awesome too, but not just because of the fireworks display itself (although it was fine), but rather because of the location we decided to watch them from.  This year we went to a small field that was packed with the people from our small city and once again the feeling of a Normal Rockwell scene popped in my mind (read about my Halloween experience that was Norman Rockwell like too).

There were families and a lot of teenage kids in the field.  A baseball game was still in session about a half an hour before the fireworks show began.  Someone was cooking on a grill off to the side, and across the street, the local city ice cream stand was packed to the gill.  There was a steady stream of people bustling to their friends houses that live close to the fireworks show, and a close bar was playing some tunes outside.  The bar owner was cooking stuff on the grill too!

Our kids were running trying to catch lighting bugs (or fireflies), jumping, darting quickly then stopping, pawing at the air as if they were kitten playing with dangling string.  It’s always comic to watch, especially my daughter who is 7 years old, she’s almost to watch.  The as suddenly as their lighting bug quest started, it ended in a sudden game of tag.

After the fireworks display, the kids lit some sparklers and swirled them around laughing and running around.  It was a feel good moment that happens even now and then.

We all had a great time, and now it’s off to bed after a busy day!

Those in the U.S. hope your 4th of July is a great one!

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Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell, a life

Norman Rockwell memory album, the best of Norman Rockwell art and humor from the archives of the Curtis Publishing Company