On a weekly basis, I fall deeper and deeper in love with painting caricatures. I’ve been at this full-time since 1996, so if the novelty was ever going to wear off, you’d imagine it should have done so by now. But, no. I have found a way to keep the magic alive.
I turned away from doing cartoony, gift caricatures of private individuals a few years ago, because it had lost its appeal, frankly. Aside from a few biographical bullet points sent by my clients via email, I didn’t know anything about the people I was caricaturing, so I wasn’t invested in capturing their likenesses. Drawing an endless stream of golfing Uncle Bobs had become pretty soul-destroying.
Instead, I’ve been focusing mostly on what I call ‘fine-art caricatures’ of celebrities. This is a much more rewarding pursuit, and an artist who loves what they’re doing is going to turn out their best work. Plus, the reality is that reference photos of public figures are both abundant and great quality, because they’re taken by professionals. This isn’t usually true of Uncle Bob, who has invariably been snapped in a badly lit pub on his nephew’s battered Android with the greasy lens. As I’ve observed on Substack before, a caricature can only ever be as good as its reference material.
With more polished celebrity caricatures, I work with clients as much as possible to give them a collaborative experience. When they commission me to paint their hero, it’s my duty to do them justice, and we have a good deal of back-and-forth about how best to portray the subject. I offer a selection of sharp reference photos from which to choose, talk them through their preferred size and media, thrash out preliminary drawings for approval, and often discuss the colour palette I would like to use in the final piece.
And because I have a fighting chance of knowing who the celebrity is, or at least of finding out quite a lot about them, I can form an opinion of them which will help me do a decent job. I can watch them in key movie scenes or in interviews, and familiarize myself with their mannerisms and personalities.
The simple fact is that the wider audience viewing my stuff online will connect more with a caricature of, say, Marlon Brando, than they will with someone’s anonymous relative. This helps me evangelize for what I do. My true passion is striving to elevate appreciation of the art of caricature to the level it deserves. It does not have to be a disposable, cheap tool of ridicule. There’s always a strong element of humour in caricature, of course. But to me, it’s principally a celebration of the infinite variety of human faces.
I would argue that great caricaturists are even more skilful than conventional portraitists. We have to push, pull, and distort a likeness, but still keep it recognizable. Think of the caricatures of Al Hirschfeld, who could break a famous face down to its essentials, and then turn it into a brilliant design, with an economy of line that has never been beaten.
Whether the art world chooses to acknowledge it or not, all portraiture is caricature, to a greater or lesser degree. I embrace this, and try to take capturing a likeness to its logical – or illogical – conclusion.
People connect with caricature in a unique way, distinct from other art-forms. It makes them look at faces anew. In other words, it’s a singular approach to finding the unfamiliar in the familiar. And to help people do that, I had to wave goodbye to Uncle Bob at the 18th hole.
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