Caricatures by Ed van der Linden

I am a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and photographer in the Netherlands. I mainly work in advertising. I also do event caricatures for weddings, anniversaries, gifts and private commissions . Most of my work is digitally drawn, but if there is time i like to draw traditionally in graphite pencil, pastel and charcoal or paint in oil or watercolor.

For a caricature i try to get my hands on as much pictures of the subject as i can. In the case of a celebrity that isn’t a problem of course, but with private commissions or caricatures of co-workers’ anniversaries it’s often hard to get decent reference. I then study the subject and try to find the features that are most ‘off-standard’ and exaggerate those features. The challenge is to determine what to exaggerate and what feature is to be left alone. You can’t exaggerate every feature because the chance of loosing likeness is very likely. I then set up a few lines as a reference for placement of the eyes, nose, mouth and face shape. I don’t sketch very detailed because i found that i change a lot while ‘painting’, (that is the big advantage of drawing digitally) so a detailed sketch is a waste of time. Then i go on ‘painting’ the entire face until a stage is reached where i think it’s finished. If there is time i let it rest for a while (preferably a couple of days) and check if any improvement can be made.

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