Quarehawk

I’ve decided if I’m ever going to get good I need to do more sketching. It seems to be the only way. All the experts say so in all the books. “Keep sketching” they say. They won’t shut up about it. So this is me getting started. I’ll review my progress after I’ve done, say, twenty.

I follow a few caricature blogs, and everytime someone puts up a rough black-and-white like this they say “Here’s a quick one of BLAH BLAH, I’ll finish it later when I get time”. Well in a shocking break with tradition - here’s my sketch of Clint Eastwood and guess what? I’M NEVER GOING TO FINISH IT!!!! Because I’m bored with this one now and will want to try someone else tomorrow.

Black-and-white kind of suits Clint Eastwood anyway I reckon.

Number of preliminary sketches : 4
Number of hours spent on drawing : 6
Number of black t-shirts owned by Simon Cowell : 714,856 *

* Source: The Guggenheim Museum

This is him in “Mr Bean” mode. What’s interesting though is that if you wanted to draw Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder, the face I have here wouldn’t work. That is, I couldn’t just stick a beard and an outfit on this pic and make it a Blackadder caricature. Even though it’s the same person.

For Blackadder you’d have to try to get his sly cunning into the drawing somehow. I don’t know if that’s a testament to the man’s character portrayal skills or what. He can give a radically different “vibe” depending on who he’s playing, using his physicality and expressions. Unlike so many of the talentless muppets appearing in every second Hollywood blockbuster, basically playing themselves over and over.

Although on the other hand, you could argue that Rowan Atkinson only ever plays one of two characters; a wibbly-faced weed or an evil scheming bastard. Whatever, I like his work.

A recurring problem with my caricatures is that I end up making people look younger than they are. I’m satisfied with the likeness I got here, but it looks like Tom Hanks from “Splash” rather than Tom Hanks from “The DaVinci Code”. And the references I worked from were all recent photos. I CANNOT figure out why this keeps happening. Too much smoothing of the skin?

Maybe it would help artistically if I got myself a beret (I don’t think I have the testosterone to grow a decent goatee).

I feckin love Graham Linehan, what with Father Ted and the IT Crowd. And also his blog.

And then I read somewhere that he’s a mate of Charlie Brooker’s which earned him more points in my book.

[Pic updated 18/02/10. The original drawing wasn't great, and then I noticed a few people had posted it around the net. So I polished it up a bit]

Speed-video below …

Back in 2007 for some reason maybe involving a mental episode, I looked up Ray Darcy on wikipedia, and I noticed that his entry didn’t have a picture.

So as part of my bid for early sainthood, I sprang into action and spent 2 sweaty hours doing this portrait. It was probably mainly a reflection on my social life at the time.

Anyhoo - I just checked and it’s still up there. Yay. I think I captured his essence with this effort. Of course this does not mean that Ray should call me up now and interview me on his radio show. God no! Or offer me 50 Euro for the framed original. Certainly not. Put your money away Ray now, and don’t be silly.

[PS: I saw Ray Darcy drinking in The Long Hall on Georges Street a few months back. He's not as small as you'd expect. He's maybe 5'8]

Stipey!

Something, maybe nostalgia (or it may have been “Smithwicks”) made me do a web search for “R.E.M Slane 95″. It turned up only a handful of photos, none of the actual concert itself, and zero videos.

Whereas my sister went to Oxegen this year, and if she ever feels wistful (drunk) and wants to re-live it she’ll have pages of shaky YouTube videos to trawl through, and probably seven million pics on Flickr.

Years from now you’ll be able to have a themed Oxegen 2008 house party where you get your old gang around with cans and run the clips and the slideshow on your jumbo flatscreen. Those youngsters today with their electrical internet, they don’t know how good they have it!!!

*Shakes fist out the window at a random teenager*

On the other hand, I made this same point to a taxi driver yesterday and he said “Well what about me? My best gig ever was seeing Rory Gallagher in 1977″.

Okay well he’s totally screwed. I gave him a 2 euro tip.

Guardian columnist and zombie-fanatic Charlie Brooker.

This is part one of a series I’m doing entitled “Caricatures nobody will ever search the web for”.