I’m taking a two-week break from reality in the Americas at the moment. So, as I have a quiet moment to bash something out, I thought I’d offer you a quick post about the joys of sketching rough studies for detailed caricatures.
Preliminary drawings are the lifeblood of a successful piece, and they always have an energy and immediacy that, for some reason, one can rarely recapture in final artwork. An extended period of sketching is also the best way to familiarise yourself with a face, so that by the time you make it to the easel or the drawing board for the main event, you already have a detailed contour map of your subject’s face in your mind’s eye.
Scattered through this article are a handful of my loose drawings which formed the basis of canvases in recent months. Hopefully, casting an eye over them will show you a little about how I think on paper…
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