Serena Williams caricature
When I was asked to make a caricature of Serena, it turned out that she had just bleached her hair. Quite a transformation though!
And a short time later she had her dark hair again. Somewhat frustrating for a caricaturist, that's what makes your work dated so quickly!
Somewhat annoying, indeed ... :-/
A bleached (!) Serena Williams beating the world!...
She was already the No. 1 in the world then, 20 years ago... And she's still playing today! Hard to believe!
However, she recently announced that she will retire from tennis soon.
It took me a while to find the right tone and layout... It was intended for children, so it should look pretty friendly...
In the end I chose that sketch on the far right ... happy and fun! :-)
I enlarged the sketch with a copy machine to the desired size. 270%, according to my note...
With that I could continue working!
A lot of work later: the finished contour drawing ... Because I drew on tracing paper, I was able to refine details on the back and erase on the front...
Handy, but I usually didn't work on tracing paper. This was rather exceptional for me.
This time (also exceptionally) I wanted to paint with ACRYLIC paint on Canson "Figueras" paper 290 g/m².
That has a coarse linen structure. That's why I couldn't just trace the line drawing on the light box like I was used to...
So I made a photocopy...
I made the photocopy completely black on the back with a greasy pencil and then taped it to the Figueras paper. Finally, with a red bic, I transferred the lines to that sheet.
It took 5 color tests before I was satisfied... Again exceptional... Queen Serena didn't make it easy for me...
Only now could I start painting with confidence. ACRYLIC paint on a A4 Canson "Figueras" sheet. A new technique for me
and I have only used it a few times. But then it tickled me, I had to give it a try!
And finally, published in the children's magazine 'Klap'...