Character Caricature

For class we had to do a Caricature of a celebrity or character from a show (had to be a "real" person acting as the character). For this assignment I picked Rumpelstiltskin from the television show Once Upon a Time.

Starting this caricature we had to liquify the photograph in Photoshop. This was then used as a base for our drawing. For me I liquified he right eye and the mouth. The other effects I improvised. 

For our digital drawing we had to use different brushes to show texture and different brush thicknesses to show depth.

Rumpelstiltskin is a greedy, flamboyant, power seeking character but he also hides the fact that he is a coward behind all the flare and fake confidence. For mine I used a more bristled brush for the hair and a hard line for the rest. I then changed brush thickness and size for areas that didn't need as much focus and to add depth.

Below is the finished line work for my caricature.

More Expressionist Techniques

For these two techniques we picked a drawing we had done previously. For mine I chose a faun detective character I created. (See below for original sketch)

For the first technique we used a brush with a hard edge to add a type of woodblock effect, only using black and white.

The second technique was a smudged colour look. The idea was not to smudge too much, we wanted to keep the hard edges of the separate shaped and colours.

These are two more techniques of how artists express emotions through their artwork. 

For example the woodblock look gives the sense of seriousness and starkness, where black and white are the only colours used. In contrast to the smudged look where the image is filled with intense colour that can express the emotions the artist is trying to portray. In this case my character is angry so I used "hot" colours the represent his frustration.

Painting to Music

In class we did an exercise where the instructor would play an instrumental music mix and we would paint. With each change in melody, tune, instrument, or vibe we would have to change colour, brush size, or brush shape based on how the music changed. In the end we all came up with different abstract art pieces. We repeated this for five different music tracks. Below is the art pieces I created.

Elderly Man Drawing Exercise 

For this in class drawing exercise we focused on a photograph of an elderly man for each of the techniques. 

For the first drawing we had about 10 minutes to draw the man exactly how we saw him. 

For second drawing we flipped the picture so the man was upside down. Then we drew focusing on the big shapes and recording carefully what we saw. 

The next technique we were only allowed to use curved lines in our drawing. 

For the following techniques we repeated the same kind of drawing as the one above but with only straight lines in our drawing. 

The next two drawings were timed drawings. We could only draw when the instructor said the key word, in this case it was "potato." When he finished the word we would have to stop drawing. We repeated it a second time but the time lengthened to two "potatoes". 

For our final drawing we focused on really pressing super hard with our pencils. This made it difficult to make curved lines. 

These specific techniques helped us understand the power of lines in expressionism. For example the curved lines only made the elderly man look gentle and kind. Where in contrast to the straight lines and darker lines could make the man look more menacing and mean.