The Milk Churn Caricature · 11 March 2008
Working as a cartoonist, believe it or not, can sometimes get a little stale. Despite the ever-changing nature of news cycles, the new people to draw each day, the new subject for comic strips etc. there is a danger every now of falling into the realm of being ‘comfortable’. It’s not common, in fact it’s quite rare (from my experience), but it can happen.
To avoid this, if I ever get asked about a specifically unique project, I make it a rule to not dismiss it straight away just because it sounds different to something I’d usually do.
I often get asked to teach classes, do murals on walls, lift shafts, you name it – and I’ve even been asked do live caricatures of hundreds of animals.
All of these things are great ways to keep my job interesting and, more importantly, challenging.
I firmly believe that if an artist doesn’t challenge him/herself, and just sticks to the comfortable stuff that they ‘know they can do’, then they fail to grow as an artist.
For example, there’s no better way to learn how to draw a mural than to actually do it. Even if the finished product ends up being less than you expected, at least you tried it, and you learnt from the experience.
(I’ll qualify the above by saying that sometimes if a client wants to pay full price for a professional water colour painting or something, I always let them know that it’s not something I specialise in, but I can give it a bash. If they’re still happy to go ahead, then they do. but if they aren’t confident to pay me, I always refer them on to someone else.)
That’s why, when a client rang up and asked if I’d be interested in a unique project, I stayed on the phone to hear him out and not dismiss it with the usual “yeah look I don’t really do that sort of thing.”
The client explained that he was clearing out a close mate’s shed one afternoon when he came across an old milk churn. Turns out his mate (who is now a highly successful land developer) used to deliver milk as a young bloke, among other small jobs to try and make ends meet. When my client asked him if he could have the milk churn, he had a bit of a sad look in his eye but said “Yeah go on, take it, I won’t use it.”
My client then spent a considerable amount of money restoring the rusted and dilapidated milk churn to its former glory, and after re-coating it, had the metal labels scrubbed up and re-applied.
He then explained to me that he would like a depiction of his mate’s life, along with a caricature of his wife and he, drawn on to the churn.
I thought it was a great idea, and pending further inspection of the surface, I’d do it.
I grabbed a selection of pens and markers drove around to his house to get a closer look at the milk churn and check that the surface would be able to be drawn on. I tested out a few Artline Papermate and Sharpie markers on it. I did a quick smudge test and it looked like the Sharpies would be the winner, as well as an Artline laundry marker.
After getting some reference photos of the couple, along with some information about his life, I did a draft sketch of the caricature and background illustration to be drawn on the surface of the churn, and emailed it off to my client to get the okay.
A few weeks later I came back and took the churn home. I had it laid on a towel as I roughly pencil sketched the draft from the original draft on my lap. It was considerably harder than I thought to draw on the shiny lacquered surface in pencil, but nonetheless I could just make out the lines which was the main thing.
After finishing the rough pencil line-work, I began drawing the thicker outlines that I’d need to start on using the Chisel-tipped Artline 90. The real challenge was working left to right and not being able to go back and forthe between different sides of the face to avoid smudging.
The ink on the churn actually sat quite well, I had kind of expected it to do that “white-board marker” thing where when you draw over solid ink it begins to reverse out the image and start taking OFF ink.
Despite it being a 40 degree day, when I started the inking, I had to do the drawing in sections to ensure I wouldn’t smudge any of the ink before it dried.
I also found that coming back to it after taking a break helped me to look at it with fresh eyes and see any errors or inaccuracies I’d made in the previous session. In fact that was a good piece of advice that the excellent Tom Richmond from MAD Magazine gave me.
He said the best thing you can do with a piece of work (if you can afford the time with it) is to get up, do something completely different, and come back to the work with fresh eyes.
You’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes to your work, and it’s such a simple practice.
After several sessions of inking, the final product revealed itself. It turned out pretty much exactly how I saw it in my head. And considering I hadn’t really done anything like it before, I was pleased with the result. And even if I wasn’t, I learnt a lot from doing it, so there was a great deal of benefit for me in doing it.
To see more of Jason’s caricatures, click here.
