48 free lessons

Art of Caricature

Course by Court Jones
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Course in Parts
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Lessons
131 Lessons
Duration
32h 15m
Skill Level
All Skill levels
Views
5.4M
Captions
EN
overview

Welcome to the World of Caricaturing

If you're someone that enjoys portrait drawing then learning caricature can greatly benefit you because it enhances your ability to capture likenesses, develop exaggeration techniques, and improve artistic flexibility. The goal of this course is to build confidence through risk-taking and help you become more adaptable to different styles. Caricature also sharpens an understanding of visual language, including shapes, lines, and forms. Additionally, it’s just fun! It's an engaging practice that will reward you by improving your technical skills and creative freedom.

This course is broken up into two parts!

Part 1: You’ll learn the core concepts of caricature. You’ll use concepts like exaggeration and abstraction to take a rough sketch to a fully developed caricature drawing.


Part 2: We'll build your caricature muscles. The exercises I've created will help improve your visual memory and even trick you into drawing stronger exaggerations. There are lessons on how to work around mental roadblocks, break bad habits and methods on how to figure out those difficult faces. We’ll even learn about digital painting.


Meet Your Instructor


I'm Court, a long-time member of the International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA). I won Caricature Artist of the Year in 2005 and Master Caricature Artist of the Year in 2011. I’ve also received awards like First Place for Original Illustration from the Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Chapter in 2010. 

I worked as an animation background painter for Disney's Disenchanted (2022). Combining my traditional art training with caricature, I create humorous yet realistic portraits and illustrations. 

I hope you'll join me in this course. I'm looking forward to seeing what you create!


What you will learn
1Exaggeration
Exaggeration is stretching the truth. Describing something in a way that makes it more of what it already is. Obtaining a likeness is the goal of exaggeration, with humor as a side effect.
2Rough Sketching
We start the caricature by exploring various ideas as thumbnails. Then develop it more with larger rough sketches, resolving the exaggeration, likeness and anatomy.
3Reilly Abstraction
You can do a basic tracing and hope that your initial sketch has solid structure, but we’ll use abstract rhythm lines to help refine the structure before adding detail.
4Final Shaded Drawing
I’ll show you how to take your rough sketch and create a final caricature drawing. We’ll make it look pretty with shading to create the illusion of volume.
5Caricaturing the Body
When working as a caricature illustrator, you will almost always have to include the subject’s body. You’ll learn how to design a caricature body that works well with the head.
6Memory Sketching
Think of caricature more as a drawing from your memory of the person rather than direct observation. It’s easier to be less literal with the shapes and more bold with the exaggeration.
7Caricature of a Caricature
This exercise can help you take things farther. You’ll do a caricature, then do a caricature of your own caricature. It’s about pushing the envelope and learning to not care about failing.
8Opposition Sketching
Sometimes, when stuck on a face, it helps to caricature two people side by side, playing off their opposing characteristics to come up with creative exaggerations.
9Spirit Animal
Often when you caricature a subject, their features remind you of an animal, object or something else. Let that mental image influence the design and balance of the features.
10Digital Paint Sketching
We’ll explore some ways to use digital tools to help us practice carciature and think of the likeness as a collection of shapes and values rather than lines. It’s a whole new way to look at designing caricatures.
11Studying the Masters
Studying masters is a time-honored technique for students learning how to draw and paint at a higher level. It’s a great way to get inside the heads of caricature artists you admire.
12Conscious Shape Design
One of the most important aspects of drawing and painting at a high level is shape design. You need to be aware of and consciously create the shapes, edges and values in your work. This includes your outer contours as well as how you indicate shadows and halftones. Shape design is the biggest factor in your own personal style.
Premium Benefits
Extended Lessons
Premium videos will be longer, covering more information about the topic. You’ll get to see more examples and demonstrations.
Assignments
A variety of exercises to help you practice what you've learned. After you do the assignments, you can post them in the community for feedback and see what other students are posting.
Assignment Demonstrations
The instructor includes demonstrations that show how to do an assignment or how to use the information taught in the lessons. Most of us are visual learners (we’re artists!), so hearing it explained is not enough. We have to see it many times.
Downloads
Includes content that the student can download to any personal device for offline viewing.
English Captions
All videos included in this course have English closed captions you can turn on or off.
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