1 May 2004 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Your 1 May 2004, YouCanDraw.com Communiqué |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In today's e-zine A) Some delays... B) Why drawing celebrities, politicians, and people in the news will improve your drawing, your drawing business and possibly your sanity... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Howdy all, A) Delays... Another quick e-zine today. And an explanation. The next few months I'll be pretty sporadic getting out the every other week zines. Why? Amongst several other things I'm back working on the last handful of Flash Interactive lessons. They'll be concentrating on the features of the face. My hope is that really tie together all the other parts of the book: they'll be the segue between the foundations of drawing and really learning to see what makes a face tick. Learning to draw the features will be the rehearsal ground for putting to use - conscious use - the four most important skills of drawing. Any missed issues or curtailed issues will be added on the other end of your subscription - plus I guarantee, just like the past Flash lessons, they're worth the wait. Flash just lends itself so well to teaching. B) next... Why is drawing celebrity caricatures an awesome way learn to draw caricatures, expand your drawing skills, and fire up your very own art business? 1) drawing celebrity caricatures... - is a great litmus test: people can agree if your drawing really looks like who you're trying to draw. They don't even have to know you (say for instance if you're involved in an on-line sketch or drawing discussion group)... 2) drawing celebrity caricatures... and celebrity / people-in-the-news types of art work is in high demand. Every newspaper, magazine, or periodical at some time or another - if not in every issue - has used some kind of caricature or celebrity cartoon to add humor or express an opinion. Many businesses and corporate newsletters employ them too, in fact many more would use them in their in house publications if only they had someone in house who could draw them. 3) Celebrity caricatures... are ubiquitous on the net - they seem like they're everywhere! So you have a constant pool of good, not so good, excellent and even awe-inspiring caricatures out there on the web - you can see for yourself all the different ways people have drawn the same person. Like I said there's an amazing amount of duplication out there on the web: the pool of people being caricatured is amazingly consistent. Follow the late night comedians or the pulp / gossip magazines: it seems like once someone has been in the news, they keep popping back in. Point? You have time to practice the same person over and over until you really come up with a whole new, all original, wild and crazy version of that celebrity your local newspaper (or celebrity) will drool to get their hands on. And if they don't, you have yet another addition to your showcase...which leads to the next good reason. 4) Celebrity caricatures.... are great for promoting your own state fair or local mall "kiosk" / boutique drawing business. Next time you walk by a caricaturist at the mall or at your state fair, notice the array of drawing samples he/she has: the majority are always of celebs. Why? Consciously or unconsciously you judge the level of their work by two things: how hilariously they exaggerate their celebrity subjects or by 2) the artistic quality of the artwork (for example, they're really good at air brush, or their mastery of the pencil grabs you, or their watercolors just plain glow). But even if you admire their technical skill, how much the picture actually looks like the person being caricatured registers most markedly. And marketably. 5) Drawing celebrities... is made even easier since the web is full of celebrity photos. You thought there was a lot of celebrity caricatures out there? The sheer volume of celebrity photos absolutely dwarfs the number of drawings! Which only underscores the relative shortage of caricaturists: it's much easier to snap a picture than it is to draw a likeness. Point here is, with all those photos, you'll never run out of material to draw. It's literally right at your fingertips. 6) Not on the web all the time? Magazines are loaded with glossy, professional, beautiful celebrity photos. Go to the library, the corner store, the drug store, the barber shop, the hairdresser, Starbucks, your family doctor's office - publications and advertisements loaded with celebrity shots are everywhere. (It's almost dizzying, almost too much - way too much if you think about it). I mention this again so you never have to be without material to draw - so in a free moment you can quiz yourself "what makes this face work?". 7) Last but not least caricaturing people in the news, celebs, politicians.... is your way to get even! Love 'em or leave 'em be, caricaturing all these folks can be your defense: a little healthy rebellion. Or it can be a way to make you feel like you're at some kind of par with all these folks who're "famous for being well known". It can be your way of getting your opinion some air time. And that in itself can be a small antidote to the celebrity obsessed time we live in. It can keep you sane...and who knows, maybe your caricaturing will make you a caricaturist yourself...and we'll have to caricature you:-) Keep on drawing! Warmly, Jeff |