The Anatomy of an Overworked Piece of Art
Overthinking overthinking! Plus: Jerry! Larry! Ru! And a cat family!
A friend of mine, a well respected classical musician, composer and professor, asked me recently something along these lines: ‘Are there things that trip you up when you’re drawing, or is it like riding a bike?’
I really liked that question. It takes a certain level of self awareness to assume someone who’s a professional at something you’re not, makes it look easy, say, might have the same types of struggles as them in their chosen field.
My answer was a definite ‘Hell yeah’. When asked for examples, I had to come up with something to satisfy his curiosity, as there’s an infinite number of things that can throw ME off, and I’m sure I’m in the majority. I came up with this nugget involving caricatures:
You know how when you look at one word over and over, it starts to take on a different meaning? Or rather, it starts to weirdly not look right? Obsessing and overthinking a caricature can do the same thing. If you don’t move on and give that part a rest, it’ll morph into something other than what was intended.
I think for the most part that’s true, for me at least- if I’m at the drawing board late at night and I find myself obsessing over some goofy aspect of a face or whatever, by the time hours have gone by, I look up, see it’s 3am and finally go to bed, whatever I was working on can appear fine in that blurry moment, but in reality it’d become the 2D equivalent of an overworked ball of clay that has lost all form and meaning. Inevitably, the next morning, seeing no redeemable anything in what I was hyper focused on only hours before, I find myself completely erasing the bastardization of whatever it was I was going for and within a matter of minutes knocking out a drawing it should have been knocked out originally: by referring back to the first impression I base ALL of my caricatures I’ve drawn. It’s so much easier that way!**
Probably goes without saying…
When people see an artist’s (artisan’s, whatever’s) work, or even better, them creating the work, it’s almost like a magic trick. I’m just a dopey as anybody- I love watching people do what they do best- because it IS like a magic trick!
The artists who can pull it off with either 1) unabashed confidence, or 2) successfully suppressing any self doubt, imposter syndrome feelings or otherwise unsureness to create the illusion of unabashed confidence make for an even better show.
I’m of the latter category. To those in the former category, please tell me your secret.
Back to the Drawing Board…
I recently had a fun commission- a group caricature (always fun), with seemingly unrelated figures: Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and RuPaul with the subject, the cat and his wife (friends of mine, to boot- no pressure there!)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13211a7e-12a3-4c19-8bc7-d057eb7349f1_3024x4032.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F75e9e7ea-c7ba-4fce-a492-6f834aab086d_720x1025.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb2c3b5e-5827-49b7-8127-666466c196b5_720x1024.jpeg)
This is sketched out in pencil directly on the board (which is mainly what this video is), then inked with a crow quill pen, and colored with markers.
I’m new to markers. I don’t know if I like them or not. Probably not. Regardless, I ain’t filming that part anytime soon!
Not until I can make it look like a magic trick.
‘Till then, here’s a video of the working out of the caricatures before going to final. I like my blue pencils…