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Caricature and Drawing
Newsletter for August / September, 2006
This newsletter
is reproduced here by courtesy of YouCanDraw.com -
Once and for
all getting you drawing faces and caricatures:
August / September
2006
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Your August /
September 2006 YouCanDraw.com Communiqué
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Howdy all,
OK ya'll, it's
been a while.
Took a long needed break. In fact so long I found it pretty hard to get
back in front of the computer. After 8 years I guess that's understandable.
I do however have to reiterate something I said in an e-mail - and later
posted at the sales page - that ezines will occasionally be "gappy".
After doing the drawing for today's though, I had so much fun I want to
keep doing them! But I know how things will pile up again.
So here's the deal:
I've got a couple other irons in the fire that are starting to require
more and more attention and there's only one of me. It's possible I may
discontinue regular ezines - but not before I do my best to fulfill the
obligation those of you whom just signed up saw advertised (I'm allowed
a few every-other-month issues though :-). If things get too wild and
I just can't get the 'zines out then they're going to be late. I apologize
ahead of time. I
truly do want to see you learn to draw and learn to draw caricatures.
Time for a blog?
Yep, I'm looking at
using the blog format in place of ezines and if that's the case, I sure
want to talk about more than drawing. It may work out that I'll be doing
both - but the blog will go well beyond just doing caricatures. What I've
discovered is that the majority of you are multitalented, multitasking,
multifaceted artists, writers, painters, singers, poets, actors - along
with having a "day time" profession. Pretty cool group! So I
think we all have more in common than you might think. I'll keep you posted.about
that :-).
On
to today's topic...
Getting back to
the basics: Modified Pure Contour in gesture and in a caricature: Making
the case drawing Japan's Prime minister
What's that? Back
up a step: what's Pure Contour drawing? Well, it's the kind of drawing
your drawing teacher probably had you do - and in retrospect seems like
most drawing teachers had you do and never knew why they had you
do it. In it's purest form it's letting your hand draw what your eye is
observing - as you observe it. Start slow, speed up a little. AND
your pencil-holdin' hand never leaves the paper. AND your eyes
never looks at what you're drawing on the paper - they stay focused on
the object being drawn.
The results are
1) your brain really gets into your subject. (And in to it's "right
side"). And 2) your drawing looks very organic. Rich
even. Review
this stuff - (pure contour drawing) if that's not sounding
familiar:
In Modified
Pure Contour you do all the above BUT you get to look at your drawing.
The greatest advantage of that (getting to see what you're drawing), is
getting proportion into the picture while you maintain that "organic
lookin" pure contour result. And you STILL don't lift your pen off
the paper.
You squint
to collapse detail into manageable shapes. You squint to see the shapes
of shadows and highlights and you record the lines and edges you observe.
Review the following:
In the following group
of drawings I was using only a plain old blue ink Paper Mate "Flex
Grip" pen (yes pen) and cheap old newsprint for paper. I challenge
you to do the same: use a pen. You can't erase and you're not to worry
about getting it perfect. This is a great opportunity to just dive in
and not be afraid. Your goal is to try some drawings (copy these drawings!)
using this method.
One more word -
you may need to proceed with caution
You're about to see
a couple (well three) rapid fire gesture drawings. Drawing the
human form is always fascinating, (I like it as much as I enjoy caricatures).
It's the perfect subject for using modified pure contour. Just wanted
to warn you ahead of time: gesture models generally don't wear a bunch
of clothes. Keep your eyes covered if you're easily offended by such stuff.
As you scroll by of course...
OK here we go. These
first five are actually drawing assignments right out of a Charles Reid
painting book (coincidentally on Painting The Human Form) :
I pretty much drew
a bounding rectangle before starting any of the drawings. My favorite
part of the picture above are the lines between the forehead, the hair,
and the glasses. Can you follow the lines from glasses across forehead
to hair? I also like how the mouth / lips turned out.
How does it compare
to the original photo? So so. There's a family resemblance - but that
wasn't my goal (that's why you see no original photo here :-) I
did a second drawing below - any closer? I don't know. Doesn't matter.
Let me say this again: the pen never left the paper but I did look back
and forth from subject to [paper to get the proportion right.
Drawing number
two:
These are fairly rapid
fire drawings - but make sure you start very slow at the beginning. Don't
draw any faster than your eye moves over a line, an edge, or an angle.
(See the pure contour assignments to learn this.)
Gesture drawing
#1
Look at how that foot
comes out at you! That's my favorite part of the drawing. Note how the
width of the foot compares to the height of the head - do a sighting.
Have you convinced yourself the foot is both taller and wider than the
visible part of the head? And talk about loose, spontaneous lines! That
not great skill - that's just letting go, not worrying about getting
anything perfect and letting your hand record what your eyes see.
You can learn this too!
Gesture drawing
#2
I'm thinking I'm going
to draw this one up large and do a painting of this next drawing. I just
really like the flow of it, the shapes, the repeated lines around most
of the distinct body parts. Where the feet crisscross and where the arm
reaches around the back - those two areas are my favorite parts of the
drawing (it's about 14 inches tall):
When your eyes stay
on your drawing subject and your hand bit-by-bit records what your eyes
see, and your head stays out of the way, (that is, you don't think
about how good what you draw looks, you don't worry about looking bad,
when your brain only acts as a copper conductor between what your eyes
see and what your hand records), it's amazing to me how simple yet how
graceful and fresh the lines always turn out in these kinds of drawings.
Gesture drawing
#3
In this next drawing
the head got a little out of proportion. I'm not going to worry about
it though.(Plus it looks like she's wearing a boxers helmet...theres actually
two heads there :-). The shadowed area on the lower abdomen and the inside
of the models leg work for me - it gives the form weight and depth.
There's also a nice
angle drawn across the shoulders going from left to right. Compare that
to horizontal. In fact, try to draw that angle made between
shoulders and the top horizontal line of the bounding rectangle on a separate
piece of paper:
...And check out that
ankle and foot on the left side of the picture - that's pretty nice! :-)
How long is the torso compared to each leg? 1/2? 3/4's the length? Do
a sighting! Prove it to yourself. What's a sighting?
See
this sighting animation to review it. You could
also open up the search function in your sourcebook and type in "sighting"
and see a ton of references there.
The Caricature
OK. Here's this
issues caricature subject: Junichiro Koizumi
We're going to go through
this pretty fast but here's the main points I want you to keep in mind
as we go:
What makes him caricaturable?
Squint! Find
the main shadows and highlight shapes.
Squint and isolate
the main features.
So what makes Mr.
Koizumi caricaturable? Well the hair is pretty big :-)
Lets hit on the eyes:
Notice the alternating
light - dark - light - dark - light - dark areas around the eyes going
from top to bottom. Also note how parallel the upper and lower lids are.
People of Asian descent have extra skin at the inside corners of the eyes
(at the medial canthii - that's plural for "canthus" - which
is Latin for corner). No need to draw stereotypes - just draw what you
see.
Where did I start?
I started drawing
at the eyes - though I took no photos until I was well along. I drew the
one on the left side first (in fact you can see the very beginning of
the first line on the upper eye lid on the left - see it?). Notice how
the lines are of the pure contour technique: you won't see many isolated
lines since I really tried to keep the pen on paper the entire time. (Exception:
some of the shadows were crosshatched.)
Once done with the
eyes, I moved along to the shadow shapes of the upper lids, then the lower
lids defocusing my eyes to gauge the rough proportions. Then off to the
nose. Mr. Prime Minister's nose is actually kind of long - but I didn't
want to go too crazy because of the large space between the bottom of
the nose and the mouth and the relatively small space between the lips
and the bottom of the chin. Review
the horizontal landmarks in
any of the case studies or see the Lesson
15 Flash lesson number one here (there's three
different links there :-)
Here's a close-up
of the eyes. Can you see the highlights in the pupils? Squint your eyes
and see if the shadow shapes around the eyes are roughly the same shape
as in the real photo.
OK. Overall proportions
of the face: He's a handsome man! He's got the strong athletic looking
jaw and strong wide cheekbones. Chalk up those two as things to exaggerate.
Check out the light space of the apron-of-the-upper-ip and compare that
to the highlight shape across the chin. Notice how the apron of the upper
lip is proportionately about two times as big? In the Mr. Average model
the bottom-of-the-nose line, the line-between-the-lips-line,
the top-of-the-chin line and the bottom-of-the-chin line
all mark off equal sections. Here can you see the difference?
OK, next pic: filling
out the jaw line, outlining the subtle shadow shapes in the cheeks and
chin - and filling in those shapes. Also notice the exaggerated chin width.
Here's a close-up:
Keep looking at the
picture above: look closely at the shape of the upper lip and "Cupid's
Bow" - that's the little down-pointing middle part of the upper lip
Mr. K's is proportionately small. Look until you can differentiate those
shapes of the white of the skin and the red of the lips. Also note the
subtle chin shadow.
Compare this and the
drawing above.
OK! The hair: My eyes
are running over the shapes within the shapes in that that big shock of
hair Mr. Koizumi is sporting:
See if you can't relate
the shapes of the hair sections in this drawing with the actual shapes
the photo. I've also begun adding the neck, the shirt collar, tie, lapels,
and the right hand. Look close at the right hand and notice again: the
continuous pure contour lines. Also notice the extra layer of hatches
over the cheeks.
...Another look at
the photo before we wrap this up:
Yep, need more shadowing
in that hair, more shadowing in the hand, the neck, under the collar:
compare those shadows in the picture below and in both the previous pictures
above...
...hmmm...something
I left out...
No I'm not drawing
cat whiskers but I see a subtle shadow shape that I missed when I drew
this picture. Can you see it? Look at the picture below and compare. Squint
until you see the subtle shadow between those rows of yellow lines. Our
Prime Minister friend picture shows off shadows formed by some of the
very delicate facial muscles just under the skin. Intermediate / advanced
level question: what's the name of this muscle?
Answer: click
on the next link to see an anatomy illustration. See if you can find the
muscle yourself before you scroll down to the answer
just below.
Click
on this link:
http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/cheek_muscles.htm
OK, did you really
click on the link? Nooo!? Go look! :-) Did you say "Zygomaticus
Major or Minor"? Dang you good! :-) The muscle outlined
on the Prime Minister's right side of the face (the area highlighted on
the photos left side) is probably the zygomaticus minor.
The other side is probably the zygomaticus major. Cool huh?
Can you find those
same muscles in the picture at this next link? (Hint it's on the
left side of the picture) - the next link:
http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/ani_lips_and_bones.htm
Cool! I have to say,
I think I'm going into a phase where I'm going to use the contour-keep-your-pencil-on-the-paper-at-all-times
approach. It really is a pleasure as you drop into those less used parts
of your brain. Not to mention the really unique, fresh, and so interesting
lines!
The Honorable Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi
Assignment:
take your time going through this page. Try to see and preferably draw
the picture using the contour approach. Review the reference pages if
something sounds unfamiliar.
Dive back in and don't
be afraid! :-)
Warmly,
Jeff
Kasbohm
& Company's
Drawing-Faces-and-Caricatures-Made-Easy.com
and
YouCanDraw.com
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