Josh Atkinson Studio Brief 2 – Theory into prac9ce – A visual response
“The love of the caricature goes very deep in terms of how it is ins9lled within us and the fact of how we have a capacity for laughter par9cularly at those who appear to demean us with their higher status of power and what they hold over us.” -‐ Mar9n Rowson To follow on from the general theme of my essay I decided to con9nue exploring caricatures as it is an art form I have always been very fond of and to reflect the quote I believe it is because of something within my nature. I was intrigued to see where further inves9ga9ve research would take me par9cularly into how I would end up analyzing the idea of sa9re.
Gerald Scarfe
I set off by looking into the works of great prac99oners such as Gerald Scarfe who has over the years developed a very dis9nc9ve way of caricaturing. A lot of his work also feeds into the grotesque side of the theme too which as part of my inves9ga9on I was interested to see How exactly he involves this no9on in his works.
Mar9n Rowson
Id never heard of Mar9n Rowson before researching for this but I'm so glad I came across him through my research as I have included many amazing quote from him in my essay and basically have generally used his quotes a lot. Especially this one which sums up perfectly the reason for sa9re and the poli9cal caricature.
“We (meaning the cartoonists) like to take the piss out of people that are beSer than us, we do it ins9nc9vely. Sa9re exists everywhere and depending on the nature of the elite who are seeking to govern us it thrives or it doesn’t thrive depending on how far they tolerate it. The less they tolerate it the more it thrives as it goes underground and becomes part of the folk culture.”
Exploring the caricature
AVer exploring other prac99oners visual signatures I decided to try some caricatures for myself as I knew early on that my resul9ng development work would be a reflec9on of the art of caricatures but with my own visual twist. I also thought it would reflect them well, as in the caricatures to include the added annota9ons or use of wording which helps put the image across beSer from a humour point of view. I picked out David Cameron and Donald Trump as the two ‘heavy weights’ to focus in on. I felt this was relevant as with recent poli9cal events or developments they too were relevant which is a theory in which I have picked up on through my research that modern poli9cal cartoons will only feature a poli9cian who has earned’ the right to be taken fun of.
Using Photoshop
I wanted to aSempt at steering away from the tradi9onal ideas of a caricature so I went through a phase where I would make my sa9rical images but through the use of Photoshop. I found this was an effec9ve way of doing it and I could churn out quick results but not in a way that’s too lazy.
More Photoshop ‘experiments’…
Instead for these I turned my aSen9on to Mr Cameron who is another one of my targets/vic9ms. Through exploring the idea of poli9cal sa9re I have really enjoyed the process of figuring out what the will be along side my personal mo9ve. For example the first image is me saying how ‘Cameron is in the shithouse’ and the second image is my way of saying ‘grow up Cameron’ and finally the last image is me saying he's shiVy or slimy and it is only a maSer of 9me before the people tred on him. I feel through exercising this I have developed a crea9ve way of thinking about how to make an effec9ve piece of illustra9ve sa9re.
Gathering evidence against Trump
At this point I had decided to focus my research on Donald Trump because for what ever reason I felt mo9vated to make him look like an idiot. So I gathered inspira9on and evidence that demonstrated how other people felt the same. Taking inspira9on from all sorts of sources, such as videos, memes and other caricatures of him.
Trump character development I thought the best place to start would be to create a mind map on my thoughts about Donald Trump. I felt this would be an interes9ng way of crea9ng inspira9on for my character work.
I enjoyed crea9ng my own characters as I got a sense of what someone like Gerald Scarfe must feel when developing his own ways of portraying his subjects. I find it fascina9ng the idea of how to analyze a face and to then apply the laws of caricaturing to their faces.
Further character development
Resolved outcomes – Donald Trump caricatures
This is the character I have got from my cartoon/caricature development on Mr Trump. I aSempted to work in a grotesque aspect in these examples as that was a supposed focus of my research however I don’t believe I saw it through effec9vely enough in this project. The idea of grotesqueness in a caricature is part of the reason that they can be so popular as there is a morbid curiosity with the viewer and I felt that it would be an interes9ng thing to take forward in my research but I unfortunately did not capitalize on that aspect in my work. However I feel I have s9ll developed a certain ability to demonstrate the core principles of a caricature and through producing the character with tradi9onal media it effec9vely reflects that aesthe9c.
Other outcomes