When I first launched the website in 2012, I was creating highly detailed caricatures, mostly of celebrities and basketball players. As fun as they were to work on, they took a hell of alot of time to complete.
I’m talking days – and i’m not sure if it was because I was still learning how to paint, or if it was just the nature of the style, but the long hours really took their toll on my excitement to produce more work of a similar quality.
So when I relaunched the site in mid 2016 I decided to change up the style to something that took less time but was equally as effective in terms of capturing the likeness of a person and their personal interests. This lead me to create the traditional caricature category that makes up most of this site, and my work to date.
So why go back to an earlier style? Why not keep using the style you just created?
So in early August my wife and I along with my sister in law and her husband, took a 3 week holiday to Europe. Amongst all the fun of sight seeing, stuffing our faces with Pizza and Gelato, and many hours getting lost in a city full of alleyways and cobblestone roads, I made sure I took time out to explore the museums and art galleries. In part to learn about the history (which I really enjoy discovering) and also to gain a larger perspective on Art, and where I fit in.
So there I am looking at all this art, created centuries ago in the National Gallery of London, Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, Doges Palace in Venice and The Sistine Chapel just to name a few, and a thought keeps coming back to me time and time again.
“Legacy”.
Every time I visited a gallery, unlike it is here in Perth, the rooms were stuffed full of people admiring there work. Whether they knew who the artists were or not, everyone who visited the gallery appreciated the work they left behind, which is still being admired after centuries of its initial creation.
Legacy is Motivation
To me that was inspiring, and it motivated me to reconsider my approach to my caricature work. Which has led me to make the original, painterly caricature style available again.
As great as the traditional caricature style is, it’s a style that has it’s limits, and if i’m to grow as an artist, I need to keep pushing my limits in every way possible, including commission work. And this is the reason why I have brought back the painterly caricature style.
Because if it’s one thing that Europe has shown me, it’s that great work begets great work. I know i’m not at a ‘work that stands the test of time’ level yet, but in order for me to get there, I really need to continually produce the best work i’m capable of, or to put it in an exercise metaphor – Keep exercising until todays workout becomes tomorrows warm up.
So if you’re interested in getting some next level caricature work done for yourself or a special someone in your life, check out the painterly caricature style and the updated caricature gallery.
