Caricature-Cartoon Elizabeth Warren – The American Spectator July/August Issue.

Last month, I had the opportunity to illustrate the cover of two political magazines. I’ll post the other cover after the magazine hits the stands. Here’s the one I did for The American Spectator‘s July August 2014 Issue. If you hold Conservative views, pick a copy from the newsstand or subscribe to the magazine here. 

July August Issue of The American Spectator.

 

I must confess that this was a challenging assignment. On the face of it, it looked easy. A lady with a Red-Indian head-dress standing in front of a Teepee… it couldn’t be simpler, you’d say. Actually, you’d be wrong. Over the years, the lady has sported many different hair-styles, her preferred outfit is a loose jacket and a pair of trousers, and most reference images available on the Internet show her waist-up! Anyway, the point is that at the end of it all she looks rather cute standing akimbo in front of that teepee that she didn’t build. Of course, she didn’t build that teepee in the image. I did.

So…

Who is Elizabeth Warren?

Elizabeth Warren is the US Senator for Massachusetts. She is a Democrat and you can read her blog here. The controversy that the tag-line in the cover points to, is the fact that she had once identified herself as a Native American. It turns out that there isn’t enough documentary proof to support her claim. While most of the voters in her constituency say that this won’t affect their decision to re-elect her, the issue has attracted a lot of criticism.

While Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly denied that she’d be running in the US Presidential race of 2016, there are speculations that she might. She is considered to be a Democratic heavyweight and there’s a possibility that she might be in the race, along with Ms. Hillary Clinton. If you’ve not viewed my Caricature of Hillary Clinton, you can view it here.

I’ve been doing a lot of other stuff lately. This included Pet Portraits, a Couple of Wildlife drawings…and oh, yes. I’ve been experimenting with my color pencils. I had tried them out last year and drawn the Caricature of Samantha the Witch and this captive here – but these were both post-card size drawings. This is bigger.

Let me take a picture and show you what it is – await my next post 🙂

If you are interested in learning how to draw caricatures, check out my book “How to Draw Caricatures? Evolution of a Caricaturist” at Amazon 🙂

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Caricature – President Obama Crowns himself King on Cover of The American Spectator.

Folks,

This month, I had the opportunity to work on a very interesting assignment – President Obama Crowning himself King 🙂  My regular visitors know that I’ve done at least three Obama Caricatures in black and white (you can find them in the Gallery here,) but honestly, none drip humor the way this does.

Let me start by presenting the artwork.

Cover Art – The American Spectator – April 2014 Issue

If you are a conservative and you don’t subscribe to The American Spectator, you can explore it here.

Now the story behind the creation 🙂

Drawing and Painting President Obama’s Caricature

The Assignment Brief

The Assignment Brief was very clear – Barack Obama crowning himself King, wearing a robe, and could be shown admiring himself in mirror – perhaps a half-figure drawing, and on a solid color background.

When you illustrate for magazines, you walk the tight-rope between design and art. The constraints are important because they set the boundaries for your artwork. So you always begin with the constraints – unlike in Fine Art, where you begin with a concept and allow your artwork to evolve and define its own boundaries.

So the first thing to do was, visualize Obama on the cover – with a solid color background. The solid background made it essential that I visualized the entire color palette within the main figure.

Balancing the Colors

Check out the play of primary colors. The wine-red velvet of the robe and the crown; the golden-yellow of the mirror, the crown, and the tooth – were two warm colors (Red/Magenta, and Yellow)- To neutralize the heat of these two colors, I needed the third primary (Cyan/blue,) and so I decided on a blue tie and offered to paint the Eagle rug from the oval office, under his feet.

That’s how the colors played out, the black/gray/white – the neutrals notwithstanding 🙂

The Head/Body Ratio

Also note the head/body ratio. In this particular caricature, the expression of glee on the president’s face was the most important element of humor. The body was unimportant – purely a hygiene factor, necessary to define the composition. This is why I went  for a very high head/body ratio – but I kept the hands big – they had to be, to hold such a huge crown.

Face-Details/Closeup

Here’s a close-up of the Caricature of President Obama.

President Obama crowns himself King – Closeup – The American Spectator Magazine – April 2014.

A Few things to note:

As you can see, I added a few ideas to the original brief. It helps to discuss your ideas with the client. Sometimes, your ideas may be tossed out of the window, because they were too “morbid,” or they needed to be “watered down.” Here are a few things that I added – the diamond stud, the gold tooth, the eagle rug, the flag, and if you can find him – a tiny but smooth operator.

The diamond stud in Obama’s ear and the gold-tooth, both are affectations of the rich and they help strengthen the “King” in him. I worked with Obama’s younger and more enthusiastic look – not the older, grayer one…reverse aging is impossible, but in its impossibility it exaggerates the impact of the caricature. I had to do some research on his hands. The color, the veins, and also his wedding band (couldn’t have missed that.) I thought that a crown with a flag would look good too.

If you’d like to learn how to draw caricatures in a methodical way – check out “Evolution of a Caricaturist – How to Draw Caricatures” on Amazon.  

Among all kinds of illustrations, caricatures evoke the highest response from the audience. A caricature achieves this by weaving the spell of humorous likeness around its subject.

This book establishes a logical method to harness the creative madness that results in caricatures. The author calls it the “Feature Frame Method” and illustrates how this method can be used to selectively exaggerate every facial feature.

Evolution of a Caricaturist helps you master the art of caricature drawing by presenting around 75 artworks and technical drawings, and then analyzing the features of more than 30 celebrity faces.

Book Cover Art for BG Hope’s Body-switch Novellas.

I’ve been somewhat busy and rather unwell (yes, I’ve been watching “Mind Your Language” – almost 4 decades after it was first telecast and, I confess that despite my inability to forget that I come from a family that fought for India’s independence,  I just love Mr. Jeremy Brown, played by Barry Evans.)

Here’s the stuff that kept me busy the past two weeks:

I created a couple of book-covers or more specifically, novel-covers for a fantastic fantasy writer, B.G. Hope. Next, I worked on a Magazine Illustration, and now I’m neck-deep into a detailed color caricature (name of the subject withheld in the interest of curiosity.)

Of these, I can present only the novel-covers here, because the september issue of the magazine that would carry the illustration has not yet gone to press, let alone hit the stands; and the caricature is not yet done. The novel covers however, now adorn the books of Ms. B. G. Hope, and so I’m ethically free to present them here.

Book Cover: Ciaran & Harith –  A Body-switch Novella by B.G. Hope

Painted in Photoshop CS6. I first made a sketch as per the concept, sent it to the author for her approval, and then painted the cover in Photoshop.

The Concept:

Samantha the sweet witch switches the bodies of two unsuspecting men, thoroughly unhappy with their own lives. The men however are as different as apples and oranges or…to beat the cliche’…as a kindle eBooks and traditional paper books! The cover depicts Samantha putting a spell on the protagonists. Wondering what happens after the switch? You get tickled in your stomach at every turn of the page, but don’t take my word for it.
Kindlers – please find the book here.
Apple-munchers – please find it here.
All others, please find it here.

About the book:

Two men who have nothing in common including their sexual orientation, find themselves in each-other’s bodies. Follow them on their quest to get their bodies back, as their new routines lead them into challenging situations with comic outcomes.

And a few words from the caricaturist: 
“The bewitching body-switch saga”– The Caricaturist

Book Cover: Johnny & Marian –  A Body-switch Novella by B.G. Hope

Again, painted in Photoshop. The goal was to make it look different and yet look part of the body-switch series by the author. I changed the color-scheme and instead of showing the face of the witch, brought her eyes into focus.

The Concept:

Once again Samantha the witch, switches the bodies of two strangers – a man and a woman, and in this book, their sexual orientation is  similar –  they both like men. The woman (Marian) isn’t the kind of woman that the Johnny ever dreamed of becoming (yes, he’d love to be a woman,) and the Johnny is a lot different from the kind of men Marian has known. Does the switch work? Check out the book at:

Kindlers – please find the book here.
Apple-munchers – please find it here.
All others, please find it here.

About the book:

Two strangers bored with their routines, rediscover themselves when a crafty witch’s spell switches their bodies. Struggling to live each other’s lives, they land themselves in one comic situation after another.

“A fantastical comedy of errors!” – The Caricaturist

B. G. Hope’s Webpage and Blog.