June 23rd 2001
(picture at bottom) 


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Your Every Other Week Caricature
Complements of YouCanDraw.com

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How do all,

Today's caricature is of Donald Sutherland - actor and sometimes TV car salesman
extraordinaire (he's the voice on the Volvo TV commercials). Mr. Sutherland has a very unique and what should be very draw able face  - long, narrow, bright blue eyes, strong choppers, long tear-drop shaped nose.  You'd think also a very easily drawn caricature. I'm finding however, that without a really good picture to start with it can be difficult to zoom in on the details that really make Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland. (Or anybody anybody...I'm just getting fussy in my old age. A good picture sure makes it easier :-)


A cousin of Sean Connery?

All and all I'm very happy with the outcome  even if he does look like his parents may
have also produced Sean Connery (do you see the slight Connery resemblance? That's
what I keep seeing. Now if I could figure out what part of the picture gives me that idea... that'll be good exercise. I think it might be the brows/nose/mouth combo).


The original photo

If you're interested, the original picture is form the June 2001 issue of Biography
Magazine with Alec Baldwin on the cover. I've never seen this magazine before but
it's a gold mine of good celebrity shots. In fact I wanted to draw Mr. Baldwin but I got
those last second jitters and just found Donald Sutherland that much more interesting.
Oh yea, the picture of him that I drew: page 93, middle picture (there's a collage of
15 pictures there. You'll see right away which one I drew - he's got the grey hat with
the black band from the movie "Eye of the Needle". The height of the actual viewable
part of his face is about 1 inch tall. I thought about scanning it and blowing it up in
PhotoShop to make things easier but I nixed that idea making myself think I wanted
the challenge, but more truthfully not more kinda not wanting to waste the time.


How it was drawn

I started the picture with a rough pencil drawing on Pentalic "Paper for Pens" made
by M. Grumbacher, Inc. 11" x 14". The pencil: a plain old Paper Mate SharpWriter #2
mechanical pencil (you can buy a half dozen for about three bucks American - it's
actually my favorite pencil for rough sketch pre-ink jobs) That part, the penciling,
took about 15 -20 minutes. It took another hour to ink in the cross-hatches. The
cross hatches are drawn with Pigma Micron 01 and 03 technical drawing pens. The
01 is smaller, that is finer than the 03 - and I generally prefer to use the 01 for about
90 % of the job. Then I stepped away from it for half an hour, went and shot some
buckets and as usual, upon returning the picture miraculously began to resemble
Mr. Sutherland...or a Sean Connery that got caught in an elevator door.

This a funny thing I've discovered: very often when in the middle of drawing a picture
you can't decide if what you're drawing has any resemblance to the subject. I've found
that somehow, miraculously after a break of minutes or hours or days, the person you're drawing really looks like the person you're drawing - at least more than you originally thought the drawing  did. So always take a little break if you're feeling frustrated - but get back to the task. You may pleasantly surprise yourself. :-)

Until next time, keep on drawing!


Warmly,


Jeff