Skill Drill Challenge 5 - Learning the art of caricature

skill-drill caricature-challenge art

“A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.” Joseph Conrad

This is the 5th straight month for taking up new unexplored things that belongs to the genre of my interest. I initially began learning two new things a month. However, I realized, it splits focus and I end up spending biased time on only of the skill or technique. So this month onwards, I have decided to take up one specific skill and try to research and explore the fundamentals of that skill. I believe in that way, I will be able to maintain an equilibrium between my regular work and hobbies.

Learning the art of caricatures

What is a caricature?

Caricature is a form of art. The goal of caricature is not to make someone ugly. It is purely intended to exaggerate a person or an object’s features and characteristics that makes them different and special from others and make them humorous.

We often see caricatures in articles, newspapers, magazines and across internet to convey stories and emotions in a fun or satirical way.

Anyone with little or no experience in drawing can start drawing caricatures. Though caricature is in its own a genre of art and requires lot of practice to master it, there are no entry level barriers to it such being able to draw or sketch with perfection. It is about choosing a personality or character and using observational skills to exaggerate the features or characteristics of that person to make a likeable resemblance. Moreover it’s just plain fun!

Resources that I am using

To learn caricature, learning the fundamental techniques is important. I personally love the youtube channel Proko. The tutorials are just awesome and very detailed and funny.

For learning caricatures, I will be taking help from a playlist of 51 videos which can be found here. According to me, these are one of the best resources to learn the fundamentals. The instructor of these videos, Court Jones is a very renowned caricature artist with over 15 years of experience.

I found another article from an Indian caricature artist Manoj Sinha on how to draw caricatures.

I never tried drawing caricatures before and was more into portrait sketching. So it will be a good add-on to be able to caricature someone with likeable resemblance. In future, I would also love to try digital drawing and rendering once I am comfortable with the traditional analog approach of pen/pencil and paper.

Books that I am reading this month

• Ego is the enemy - Ryan Holiday
• Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think - Ryan Gosling
• Business Adventures - John Brooks

Lastly here’s a cool video about drawing caricature in simple steps from another talented youtuber

At the end of this month, I will share my sketches as well and see how I stand in terms of drawing caricatures.