The Practical Guide to Drawing Caricatures: [Artist's Workbook]

By Peter Gray

Comic and accessible, with great scope for invention, caricatures are a joy to draw. In this book, author and illustrator Peter Gray works through the process of achieving a likeness and distorting it in imaginative ways for maximum effect. Tailored step-by-step exercises help aspiring caricaturists to build up their skills, and handy hints will keep them in the know about techniques and materials.

The Artist's Workbooks are practical guides for artists interested in getting to grips with a particular subject.

Other books in the series include:

• Drawing Animals
• Drawing Figures
• Drawing Landscapes
• Drawing Manga
• Drawing Portraits
• Drawing Still Life
• Drawing Techniques

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782129288

Book preview

CARICATURES

INTRODUCTION

Among all the challenges that art has to offer, designing original caricatures is one of the most rewarding. It is also one of the most accessible art forms; even those who have no knowledge or interest in art can appreciate the caricaturist’s ridicule or imaginative portrayal of the famous. In designs that may range from extreme minimalism to grotesque exaggeration, the caricaturist fuses the language of cartooning with studious observation and a personal take on the subject. And most vitally, he must always lead the viewer to a recognizable likeness.

Caricature is all about manipulating reality, but before you can bend the rules, you must first learn them. The step-by-step demonstrations in this book will teach you the basic principles of drawing natural likenesses whilst gradually introducing techniques for distorting them. Designed as a course, each new subject follows logically from the previous one. Working through from the start, even the complete beginner should soon be able to produce satisfying caricatures. When following the exercises, try to resist simply copying my examples; apply the same stages to different faces to create new pictures.

The book aims to cover a broad range of approaches and stylistic treatments. We will also look at integrating the qualities of animals and objects into human characters and a section on caricaturing the whole body presents yet more possibilities to convey character, expression, humour and ideas.

Learn the simple rules that govern the head’s construction.

Profiles and silhouettes offer simple angles for quick caricatures.

Strive for simplicity and economy whilst retaining likenesses.

Capture the particular expressions that are so revealing of a person’s character.

Give your subjects inhuman qualities for humour and impact.

With full body caricatures you can broaden your scope for expression and comment.

No doubt it will seem like hard work at times; some likenesses can take many attempts to nail down. But others will come easily and the more you draw, the more your eye will develop and the fewer failures you will encounter.

Don’t be put off by the slick look of the artworks produced by professional caricaturists; they are not too hard to emulate once you know some tricks of the trade. We will investigate various materials and techniques, encouraging you to draw with confidence and pleasure, and working towards your own unique caricature style.

WHAT IS CARICATURE?

Before we get into drawing caricatures, let’s consider what we mean by the term. It may seem obvious: funny drawings of famous faces. Well, that’s not a bad definition, but there’s more to it than that. Caricature as a modern-day discipline encompasses some distinct areas of design and excludes others. As a concept it goes back several centuries to the great masters, so we will begin our study there.