week 1- caricature

Intent- To investigate the idea of communicating something about the nature of someone by exaggeration / caricature

Nigel Farage

Content- Nigel Farage. ‘politician’
Communication objectives- To visualise a personal perspective of his politics and opinions



We looked at the French painter Daumier, Honore' Who was known for his caricatures of political figures 


We looked at several examples of his work for inspiration. 

Next we looked at this picture in particular and used it as a reference point to explore caricature. We looked at the different aspects of the reference point, such as; the use of distortion, exaggerations (some unrealistic and surreal)- designed to emphasize and highlight personal characteristics. 



For example when I de-constructed the image I documented the exaggeration of the nose and shape of the characters head, I also noted the clothing, the neck has been lengthened and given shape with the use of top with a high neckline, this creates imagery of birds, in particular vultures as they have long necks. The character has been drawn with an exaggerated nose. often people refer to large noses as "beaks" which ties in nicely with the vulture imagery. I also noticed his eyes are very small in comparison to the rest of his feature, small beady eyes. like a bird. 

We then had to create a caricature of the politician Nigel Ferage. We used clay to mould the face of the subject. 
Here is my model 

Our task was to create a caricature whom represented Farage in some way, this could be by created a realistic representation or by visualising a perspective of his politics. 
Unfortunately my model did not resemble Farage very much, which I would liked to have improved if I had more time. However I focused on portraying his personal attributes through the way I moulded his expression. I moulded him with his tongue sticking out to make him look silly and un-important, as I find his face is hard to take seriously. I gave him a nose which sticks up into the air, to represent his belief that he is in some way elite and more important than the average person. I exaggerated his eyebrows to express his constant look of bemusement. I also wanted to focus on his habit of talking too much, so I looked at more images of him on Google and found one facial expression particularly terrifying. I decided to re-create this vulgar expression as it emphasizes his mouth always being open, which I feel visually represents the attribute of not                                                       knowing when to stop talking. 

Our next task was to draw/ paint our models.

Firstly I drew the model. I used this media first because I find it easy to work with so I thought it would help me understand the form and tone of my model.

Next I drew the model in pen and did a wash effect with water. I like this media as it is a quick effective means of applying tone. I wanted the image to pop off the page, and look scary. I think this is a really nice image as the highlighted areas exaggerate the form of the figure and the surreal size of his features. I think this image turned out better than the other two and intend to do more experimentation with strong black and white tones. 

This was a less effective media for me, the outcome is not very representative of the model and is lacking in definition. However I enjoyed using paint as it is a very thick media and creates excellent texture. Another thin I liked about this image is the interesting brush marks left by the paint brush. They are messy like politics. The texture of the paint creates an imperfect, textured, rugged caricature which could represent Nigel's own withered  appearance and his un-pleasing nature. 





Evaluation of experiment 

I enjoyed using the clay as a means of creating a caricature, However I would have liked my final outcome to have had more resemblance to Ferage. Adding a background may have been a good idea, as to add more context, so I could further show his traits as a greedy politician, as this was difficult to get across just by creating his face.