What is a caricature?

According to Lenn Redman, a caricature is:

"an exaggerated likeness of a person made by emphasizing all of the features that make the person different from everyone else."

This quote is taken from Redman's book How To Draw Caricatures, which I have just ordered from Amazon to try and improve my own caricatures. I think this is the best definition of 'caricature' I've ever heard. Redman also makes the distinction between 'distorting' features, and 'exaggerating' features, 'exaggeration' being "overemphasis of the truth", while 'distortion' is "complete denial of the truth". In this way, caricature should be seen as an exaggeration of certain features of the face, rather than distortion.

He also references Einstein's theory of relativity! Basically, that we perceive things as they are only because of their relationship to each other. So if somebody has a big nose, we need to draw it bigger, relative to the other facial features as well as relative to the 'average' nose size. Somebody's ears might look huge relative to his tiny head, but compared with an 'average' pair of ears, they might be no bigger at all.

From the extract I've read it looks like the book will give me some valuable insights into the theory of caricature. Can't wait for it to be delivered!

Tags: Lenn Redman, How to draw Caricatures, relativity, caricature

Famous in China!

I just found out that there is an article about this blog on the website of the China Daily newspaper! Maybe that's why yesterday my site saw a record number of hits. Better get working on that Chinese site then I suppose!

Roughly translated, the article reads:

drawmyface.co.uk, an English man's blog, he studies Chinese in China, likes Chinese culture, and also likes painting. On this blog, called drawmyface, there is a story behind every picture, are you curious, then come and have a look at this laowai's (foreigner's) caricatures!

Tags: china daily

Drawmyface 3.0 goes live!

Drawmyface 3.0 is now online. Not much has changed really, apart from the design. There's a new Skype Status button in the menu bar, so you can contact me directly from the website when I'm online, and I've added a buy now button for the recent Adam Sandler painting, and I'll be adding these for all available paintings shortly, so they can be bought directly from the site via PayPal.

There's still a lot of work to be done, I haven't had time to update the Chinese site yet, I'll have to work on that at a later date, but the old version can still be found here.

So let me know what you think of the new design, and if there's anything dead links or anything. Sometimes I go for months before I discover a missing image or a broken link, so I really appreciate feedback in that respect.

I'm still getting settled back in the UK, but I'll be getting the pencils and paintbrushes out again soon, so stay tuned!

Tags: drawmyface, skype, paypal, painting

Another new look

I'm back in England now, after three years in China. I currently have no bedroom, and everything I own is stacked in boxes around my house, hence the lack of new pictures recently. I should get settled in a week or two, then I can start on some new faces. Bear with me.

In other news, drawmyface is currently undergoing yet another facelift. The site is being redesigned by Silver Cell Internet Services to make it more user-friendly, dynamic and pleasant to look at, as well as fixing lots of behind-the-scenes technical stuff to make it work better. Here's a screenshot of the new look. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Tags: drawmyface, silver-cell, web design