Drawing for student newspapers forty years ago, I had vacation time along with the undergrads come mid-May. What was an aspiring cartoonist to do (besides sending cold-mail applications to any newspaper around the country that didn't already have an editorial cartoonist on staff)?
Keep in practice, that's what. This cartoon was never published anywhere until this very morning; nor did I have any publication in mind when I drew it. If I had expected to get it into the last Parkside Ranger of the school year, or the Racine Journal Times, I would certainly have put the paper's name in the cartoon.
Some late night that month, I sketched some of the cast of SCTV, a Canadian export to U.S. television in the late '70's and early '80's. Seen here, left to right, are Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Martin Short and Andrea Martin.
I drew everyone too large to fit Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas, or Harold Ramis on the page. I couldn't even get all of Eugene Levy's hair on it.
Perhaps the other cast members didn't happen to be on the episode that ran that evening. At any rate, I never did get around to sketching the rest of them.
As the the top cartoon demonstrates, I needed to work on the human form, not just caricaturing human. The woman answering the phone didn't need to bend over to tie her shoes.
In this caricature of John Cougar Mellencamp, who probably appeared as the musical guest on SCTV that May, I was exploring the Big Head school of caricature. It's a good choice for someone whose body-drawing skills weren't the greatest. In spite of my trying to depict motion, his limbs are still stiff.
My Garrison Keillor looks more relaxed than my Mr. Mellencamp.
It doesn't show here with the drawing shrunk down to 100 dpi, but the page on which I drew Keillor bled considerably.
I kept a sketchbook (and still do) in addition to the drawings posted above; in it there are caricatures of friends from college, geometric designs, and idle doodles, all to keep my mind and hand in practice. Unlike these loose sheets, however, nothing in it is dated, so I don't remember when I drew what.
But just for gits and shiggles, here's a page of random faces to close out today's little exercise.
Now get out there and draw!
No comments:
Post a Comment