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Caricature and Drawing
Newsletter for December, 2006
This newsletter
is reproduced here courtesy of YouCanDraw.com -
Once and for
all getting you drawing faces and caricatures:
December 2006
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Your December 2006
YouCanDraw.com Communiqué
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Howdy all!
I know you're all
busy with the holidays, so we'll get right to it today: picking up the
pace in a semi gig-like practice test run. What's that mean? Well today
it means revisiting the Japanese Prime Minister one more time. Since we're
familiar - at least a little bit - with what makes him caricaturable,
it's time to apply the "heightening" concept or at least try
drawing him in a variety of ways. AND, not worrying about making the pictures
look the same. Which really is easier than it sounds - and more liberating.
And drawing him in a timed setting - and drawing as many
pictures as you can of him in 20 minutes so you can get right back to
your Christmas shopping :-)
My goal today:
Twenty minutes to draw as many pictures as I can in ink on newsprint.
I'll predict I can do about 3 pictures - I'm out of speed practice plus
you're probably all getting sick of seeing the Prime Minister of Japan
again :-)
Drawing in a timed
fashion forces you to get going and forget about getting everything
perfect. This is as true in those life drawing sessions as it is in a
paid party situation. Let that little bit of added pressure push you past
and into a completely new comfort zone. Watch me do this then you try
it! You'll
be amazed how good you feel if you try this and by how much less guilty
you'll feel about shirking your commitment to drawing...if you've been
shirking it, which of course I know you haven't. :-)
Dive on in
Let's dive on in.
Got my trusty Flex Grip pen - a very attractive hue of blue. I got my
Strathmore Newsprint paper pad. Timer is set for 20 minutes. I have Photoshop
open and on my computer screen I see something like this:
So
I have the original photo of the Prime Minister and I have a caricature
right there in front of me. Like we talked about last
ezine, today's exercise we'll keep that idea
of heightening in mind (see last
ezine if you don't get "heightening").
Here we go.
First thing is draw
a rough format. The format in this case is the roughly rectangular
bounding shape I'm going to draw the caricature inside of. It's a guide.
If I go outside the lines, fine and dandy. No biggee. I'll start in the
bottom third center of the paper because having drawn this guy twice before
I know I'm going to be piling on the hair. Timer is ticking...
As usual I start with
the eye on the left (the PM's right eye - i.e. if you're the PM), move
across to the other eye, then down the nose, then down to the philtrum
(the little groove between your nose and your upper lip) then down to
the lips and mouth. I'm staying in that contour drawing style (see the
previous two ezines - Oct
/ Nov and Aug
/ Sept - to see more links for contour drawing). Getting
back to contour drawing has really added a spark to my drawing enthusiasm
these last couple of months - it really promotes observation. It's the
mother of all great drawing. Tick, tock...
...next step:
leaping out with the jaw line. I made a little squiggle that represents
the shadow under the lower lip and tried to keep my pen on the paper when
moving from one section to the other. Which I don't always do 100 % of
the time when I stop to take pictures of the progress...see that here:
...next step below:
well I made a huge leap. Under the gun here. Clock ticking. Actually I
just got into the drawing and forgot to take photos. Sorry. Alzheimer's.
Early onset...
As you can see though,
much has happened: I moved up the cheek on the left side of the paper,
returned down under the chin, up the left side, made a couple semi-slow
motion return trips on the jaw line. If you look close you can see the
double and triple lines on that jaw line. All those lines fold over on
themselves the way a string lays down and loops on itself in a heap on
the floor - like when you hold a length in your fingertips and lower it
into a spontaneous design.
You can see on the
left side of the page (in the picture just above) where the ink line leaps
back from the cheekbone to redraw some of the lines around the mouth (actually
from along side the nose down to the corners of the mouth - in fact I'm
seeing an upside down wine glass right in the middle of the Mr. Prime
Min's face. Do you see it?)
From the mouth I moved
back up along the base of the nose, along it's sides up to the eyes, thus
adding width to the nose. Go back and forth between the two above pictures
and notice the change in the lines representing the nose - see how it's
shaping up?
The eyes and eyebrows
were sort of outlined by circles and the brows were thickened up. From
the eye brows I leapt down to the neck, the sport coat, tie, and hand
(about 5 minutes have elapsed by now - slow start).
If you look close
the vast majority of lines that make up this picture so far, all are built
out of one long line. I think I actually kept my pen on the paper almost
the entire time (except where I stopped to take a photo - but I set the
tip of the pen right back down on the end of the line I stopped at...just
lke that string deal...).
Next
photo
OK - Hair! We're about
seven to eight minutes in. I'd better hurry up!
Let's compare this
picture so far (which is only about 4 and 1/2 inches tall) to the first
caricature (about 16 inches tall):
Scroll back and forth
between those two. What differences do you see in terms of the shape of
the jaw line, features, eyes, hair, etc.? Don't judge the two on 3-dimensional
depth - the original caricature took a lot longer to draw. The hatching-in
of the shadow shapes is the major difference. Guaranteed, if I slowed
down enough to hatch in all the shapes on the today's mini-drawing it
too would look much more authentic. DO look at the lines and edges that
outline the shadows and compare them and see if you can't see how similar
the main lines really are. Also remember, we're drawing in "Gig Time"
today: going for speed and accuracy.
Next
picture:
In the picture I have
to ask myself if I'm drawing more stereotypical eyes - but maybe these
look more like the real prime minister too ! I see an upsweep of the lower
edge of the lower eye lids. So that's accuracy, not stereotyping.
Compare to the original
Prime Minister photo:
Compared to Western
eyes Asian eyes do seem - and are - narrower and more upswept - even if
they aren't upswept above horizontal. Western eyes are also have less
skin and eye lid tissue and so appear deeper set. It's all relative :-)
Compare the lower lids here of Ted Koppel:
For the really big
picture of Ted click
here (yes, you'll need your password). And on closer observation
all I can really say is Ted's lower eyelids are just rounder and it's
the over hang of the upper eyelids that cause the drooping corner look.
Does that make sense? Compare and contrast the eyes on Ted with the Prime
Ministers until you convince yourself of what makes them different. Onward!
Finished drawing
number two:
No, he's not giving
us the bird there. Though it might look that way...and it would be kind
of funny if he was. Ahhh. Nothing like the holiday spirit. If you squint
he really does look like he's not enjoying this drawing
session. But if you're offended - and for the record - he's not - but
here the second picture is done and we're about 13 minutes in on clock
time. I did this second one much faster. Like in about 4 and 1/2 minutes.
That's an average of of just over 6 minutes a picture. Right in the pocket
for gigs and hey, I haven't done timed drawings for YEARS! And
I'm having a blast. :-)
Compare
and Contrast
Compare and contrast
one feature at a time: hair, eyes, nose, length of the nose, distance
between nose and lip (in which picture is this distance large - nose to
lip?) Look at shape of jaw line, angle of the line that represents the
lower edge of the jaw - which is steeper compared to horizontal? To vertical?
What other comparisons and contrasts can you make? Do they look like the
same person even with all these differences?
OK, starting the third
picture. We're thirteen minutes in. I just looked at the clock and we
got a relaxing 7 minutes to do the final drawing (remember I'm trying
to do at least 3 drawing in a 20 minute timed session. Here we go...
Kind of looks a lot
like the last two...working a lot smaller than I normally do. At a gig
I use 12 by 15 inch paper and the size of the actual head of my gig-drawn
faces are about 7 -12 inches tall - if I draw a body underneath it. Average
size of a head/face-only drawing: 9 to 10 inches. (Again the body - which
might just be shoulders - drawn as a pose is drawn in the space left over...Cruising
along:
It seems almost like
cheating to do the same face over and over - and it is in a way - but
it helps you to start building patterns in your brain (like starting in
the same place on each drawing - me, I like starting with eyes, then nose,
mouth then face shape and hair last). You also start building your own
stock features. What are stock features? They're categories of lips, eyes,
teeth, all the individual features - you start seeing after you've drawn
a lot.
Drawing #3:
off to the eyes and eyebrows below:
Finishing up the other
cheek bone...clock time is really getting short - compare these two pictures
a feature at a time. Convince yourself what's similar, what's different....
One minute to go!
Here's a close-up of this third drawing:
Getting on with the
hair...
DING!
Buzzer just went off.
Not finished but I can see in my brain what I want to draw. Am I gonna
stop just because the buzzer went off? Would you do that at a gig? Heck
no! (But you do have to draw a line about when to stop...let's keep
marching....and yes I know I just unintentionally used a stupid pun there...
Whip that hair down!
Scribble in some shadows. Deal or no deal? Deal! Smack the
red button and done in 8 minutes on this third sketch. That's 21 minutes
for all three. Not bad!
I'm cracking up looking
at how that hand turned out.
Assignment
Look below for all
three drawings side by side. Do the feature-by-feature contrast / comparison
between the three until you convince yourself how fairly divergent representations
of the same person can still be recognizable. And review
this caricature page - see the five skills of caricature. Yes,
they're different (more specific and focused) than the five skills of
drawing. Again click
here for that. The link takes you to the top of a HUGE page. (It's
all in your source book too. Don't have that? You can get one here: www.YouCanDraw.com.)
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