Meet Ron Hill | Cartoonist and Caricaturist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ron Hill and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ron, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Drawing has always been a natural (and enjoyable) talent since before I entered kindergarten. My parents always made sure I had plenty of crayons, paints, pastels, pencils and paper so I would draw for hours on end. So when I got to high school, I enrolled in a vocational commercial art program, which flowed into attending The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I had dreams of being a syndicated newspaper cartoonist, but knew I needed a “real job” so advertising art was a natural choice. After 10 years working as a creative director, and doing caricature entertainment sporadically on the side, I was ready to quit the day job and pursue quick-sketch caricature entertainment and freelance cartooning full-time. While I have enjoyed a few other careers, like teaching an interactive media high school career-tech program and co-creating a media company, I have always done freelance cartoons, book illustrations and lots of caricature entertainment gigs, and now, after 40 years, I am back to full-time freelance work. Caricature quick-sketch at events is half my work; the other half is editorial cartoons for the Chagrin Valley Group of newspapers for the past 25 years, book illustrations and personal documentary projects.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Again, EVERYTHING I do professionally has been founded in drawing. If I am designing a logo or producing a documentary, I develop concepts and storyboards by hand. Obviously the quick-sketch caricature entertainment is totally drawing. There is nothing more satisfying than to draw someone’s caricature in two minutes and see their reaction. In the 1990s when I first went freelance, I got to the point where I was booking more than 120 gigs a year, and I loved it. Now as I lean into my 60s, I have dialed it back a bit (but still performing at over 50 events a year). I have a number of clients whose events I have drawn at for more than 20 years, and one client in particular I have drawn with for over 30 years. Getting to this point is really quite simple when you come down to it: do what you say you will do. I have found if I am honest with people things always work out. I learned from some good mentors that selling is not “selling,” per se, but simply talking and listening to a potential client, and if I can provide a solution to their needs, then it’s a win for both of us.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When anyone asks about Cleveland, my number one response is the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is truly a world-class institution, and a cornerstone of Cleveland’s University Circle for more than 100 years. I am an east-side guy, and there are so many fun neighborhoods: University Circle, Little Italy, Larchmere and Chagrin Falls. The Cleveland Metroparks is a great, forested park system, while Northeast Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline has so many great beaches, towns and restaurants.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people who are responsible for my success: Ms. Burkovics and Mr. Hilles, my art and commercial art teachers in high school, Jim Morgan, my first boss at Morgan Art Studio, many business colleagues and clients, my supportive wife of 40 years, but I must say the single-most important and first people were my parents, Jim and Sally Hill, especially my Mom. She was the one who pushed me into art when I had pretty much given up on art classes in middle school. In fifth grade I decided I just wanted to draw, and the art classes in the middle school were all about crafts. That may sound harsh, but it was where I was at: crafts weren’t my thing. It was my Mom who, behind my back when I was in tenth grade, took my sketchbooks and comic drawings into the guidance office and demanded, “Find some place for this kid!” That impromptu meeting led to an independent art study program, and the commercial art program the following year. If my Mom had not done that, I may not have started on the creatively fulfilling path I have been on for almost 50 years.

Website: RonHillArtist.com