WATCH: This man has ‘one of the fastest draws in the west’

A local caricature artist, Monte Barwick, was part of Tuesday’s Meet Me on Bernard events, capturing the likeness of anyone who wanted to be drawn. He offered his talents for free on the day.

“[I’ve been drawing] since I was a kid. Since grade school, drawing in class and whatnot,” Barwick told Kelowna10. “I drew my teachers, and they ended up in the yearbook so that kind of encouraged me and I’ve been drawing ever since.”

Barwick has been drawing for many years, performing all over the lower mainland and Interior BC, even having his cartoons published in newspapers.

Kelowna10 brought Barwick a very special subject to sketch to watch his artistic process.

Watch the video to discover who.

“I like to just, go for likeness first of all, and then exaggerate whatever seems to happen at the time,” he explained. “I look at the face and let the pen do it’s work.”

Unlike most caricature artists that focus on features people may be self conscious about, Barwick prefers to highlight positive aspects of a person’s visage.

“I try to be friendly with my caricatures, rather than dastardly,” he said. “I started out with a little bit of a harder edge, but now these days it’s pretty friendly.”

He’s known as “One of the fastest draws in the west” taking only around four minutes to complete a full caricature.

“I say about four minutes, but a lot of the time it’s faster than that,” Barwick remarked. “If I have the time, I’ll stretch it out a little bit, but if there’s a line-up of people, I can go pretty quick.”

Barwick teaches classes on drawing caricatures and cartoons, hoping to encourage and inspire creative skill development.

“One thing I like to tell them is to keep drawing, to not stop when you get to a point in high school or adulthood. Don’t stop drawing and draw as much as you can to learn whatever you can and have fun.”