When it comes to learning any new art form or skill, the basics play the most important role, and form the foundation of the art work you will create. Let’s discuss some of the fundamentals for those interested in learning the art of caricature.
When you look closely into caricatures from different sources, you will discover certain common traits, like the shapes of the faces, features and bodies. Every caricature is a combination of simple shapes displayed in a unique manner. Together, these shapes express funny, exaggerated, cartoonist-style features of people. These shapes may seem simple but they help the caricature artist to free up their hand to easily turn and twist while sketching.
The shapes are not complicated ones. In fact, they are just the straight lines, circles, ovals, squares, rectangles and curved lines that most people are familiar with. Practicing these shapes forms the fundamental building blocks of the artist, which will influence his or her future art works. It is very important to master basic drawing of lines and shapes before starting to sketch actual caricatures.
Let’s start drawing the simple shapes. Take a piece of paper and simply draw straight lines both horizontally and vertically. This will help to free up your hand to do more sketches. Then proceed to circular shapes like circles and ovals. Then squares, and so on. Soon, you’ll be able to draw caricatures using the different combinations of these shapes as outlines.
Friends, do share, in the comments, your experience after practicing the shapes.