Chris Collins reviews Kevin Nealon's art book I Exaggerate My Brushes with Fame, a collection of portraits of comedians and celebrities like Robin Williams, Johnny Carson, and Norm MacDonald. Nealon captures their character through expressive eyes and reflections, moving between caricature and realistic portraiture with digital tools.
November 16, 2023
I want to share with you today, in addition to the library, this is a new courageous book by Kevin Nealand called I Exaggerate My Brushes with Fame.
So Kevin here is painting. So he's painting portraits of different people of interest, and then he's telling a story alongside of it. Some of the stories are his personal interactions. Some of his stories are just how they influenced him. And he's then painting some sort of character of. Of the person. The book in the beginning is dedicated to the people that he is painting. And you can tell that Kevin is ancient and old because he says here in the dedication, I thank you in advance for not removing me from your speed dial. You would. Kevin, you would no longer say speed dial. I think you would say your favorites. Right.
So he has some sketches in here. There's a little bit of a setup.
You can tell that he's developing a style, a lens. He kind of comes in and out of the kind of caricature, kind of exaggerated caricature, I would say. I also get the sense that some of these are digital. Like they're on a. They're on an iPad or something, because you can tell, like here with Robin Williams, that this chest hair, that's. That's not how it would look if you were painting with oil or acrylic. It looks more like a, you know, some sort of digital pencil. So I'm not sure if he's painting them, bringing them in. You can also tell in the outline of the top of the hair. That's a digital pen on some sort of pad. It's not paint on canvas or paint on wood. So kind of, like I was saying, like, this Johnny Carson is an example to me of the kind of extreme caricature of someone, like, where he's exaggerating somebody's feature. Right. I think the first time I ever saw caricature was Nixon, where they would just make. You know, he was a nose, basically, in. In a lot of cartoons. And so this isn't my favorite, but it's, you know, I get it. I. I understand it. I do enjoy the fact that he's doing two things for us. He's telling a story, which is an art in and of itself. Right. To communicate a story. And then he's also painting the person, which gives you two different versions of his. His feelings about it. Right. This. This Dave Letterman one here might be my least favorite. Looks really phallic to me. Like the cigars coming right out of the middle of his mouth.
It's kind of odd to me. I Would love to sit down with Kevin and go through these with him, but I'll tell you. So this Andy Kaufman one, to me is the perfect balance. Like, I would put this on. On a wall somewhere. I think this is very well executed and that it's not too, you know, none of his features are too overly exaggerated, but it's got energy. One thing that Nyland is really good at in this book is eyes. He. He communicates a lot with how he draws or paints the eyes. That they usually are.
Very, very well done, and they have a little sparkle to them.
And let me share.
This Buzz Aldrin one I think is really interesting. Like, that is a really interesting painting. There's a lot to look at. A few of these, you can. You can look at them for a while. Like.
You can just stare at him.
This. This painting is hard to look at, but Chris was hard to look at. Like, you. You got this sense with Farley that he would do anything for a laugh. It didn't matter how self deprecating. It didn't matter what he had to do. He was selfless in his pursuit of a laugh. It's uncomfortable, and I. I think for a lot of us, it's uncomfortable because most of us won't commit to anything. Like, a lot of people won't commit to what they're having for lunch, let alone commit to an art or, you know, a career, you know, any sort of endeavor that requires them to be selfless and put themselves aside in that pursuit. Nealon captures that here. Like, he. He gets it. Like, and once again, the eyes, like, there's a. There's a smile there, right? Like, it's. Like it's an invitation. Like, come on. You know, you want to laugh, and then the sparkle in the eyes pulls you in, but then it's just so uncomfortable. He. He captures that tension perfectly here. It's. It's great. But this Howard Stern one, man, like, there's something about it. Like.
He. He really captures Howard well here in a way that I would. I wouldn't have expected.
I love how black the blacks are. I love what he's doing with the hair. And then the glasses. There's a reflection in the glasses that is an incredible detail and not an easy thing to execute this well. Like, it's really well executed. Also, if you stare at this long enough, you'll see a little Easter egg, which is right here in Howard's hair. He wrote Beth, which is Howard's wife. So it's right there. Beth.
Which is, you know, sweet. The other one in here that I, that I really, really like is Norm. So he did Norm MacDonald, fellow Canadian. And I think he captures Norm perfectly. Like he's handsome. There's a sparkle in his eye. Same kind of thing with the Farley words. Like there's a little invitation to some sort of mischief. Like, hey, you want to be in on the joke? You know, just fun. And man, how much do we miss Norm MacDonald.
What a incredible human being he was. So addition to the library here.
Really, really fun book to to look through. I Exaggerate My Brushes with Fame by Kevin Nealon. Pick it up for yourself if you can. Or if you ever come to the library, you can pull it from the shelf. I would contend also that if you have more than two books, you've started a library. But keep in mind, he who dies with the most books.
Wins.
