Loose style

I was booked to work at the Reebok Stadium over the weekend where Bolton Wanderers had organised a per-season Family funday for their fans. After drawing something like 30-40 caricatures at the stadium I had to get myself over to their Training Ground where the staff and players were holding a barbeque. I'm not a football fan per se but I did recognise the striker Kevin Davis and the Bolton manager Owen Coyle when I drew them. I just wish I'd taken my camera with me for a souvenir photograph!

I may have mentioned before that I've been trying to create a looser style when producing studio caricatures. I do this by drwaing the caricature directly in pen and ink (using no pre-drawing with pencil for example) and if it doesn't work then I have to start all over again. As an example I tried to draw the the football manger of Fulham (now Liverpool) Roy Hodgson and my first attempt is below:


The thing about caricaturing is that soemtimes you really can't tell whether it looks like the person or not when you're drawing it - you have to leave it for a while and come back to it to look with fresh eyes. In this case at the time of drawing it I thought I was close to a good likeness and coloured it up before leaving it for a few hours. When I revisited the image I realised I hadn't 'got' him at all and so I drew him again. Below is the second version:

I think this one is a much better likeness.