The Ink Stained Wretch #171 2/5/25

It just goes to show you, it's always somethin' with our sketch, and we really mail it in this week!

Here's we go with another of the querulous, quixotical and quibbling bits of quackery that are these newsletters! This week our sketch proves if it isn’t one thing, it's another, and we crack open the reader's mailbag ... on with the 'Wretch!

Sketch o'the Week: Gilda Radner!

Click here if you are interested in this original sketch.

I’m going to start a new series for my “Sketch o’the Week”… famous Saturday Night Live skit characters! I’m starting with an easy one because this week I am really swamped with deadline jobs and I’m off to teach a workshop in L.A. this weekend. That said, Gilda Radner remains one of my all time favorite “Not Ready for Prime Time Players”, and her character of Roseanne Rosannadanna is a classic.

Full disclosure: This series is happening in part because of one of those deadline jobs I am being swamped with at the moment, which I will share here on the ‘Wretch when I am allowed… assuming I get it done by the deadline!

Reader Mail!

For a very long time on my blog I did a feature called “Sunday Mailbag”, where I answered reader’s questions. I did a few of them over the years… 691 of them at last count. I’ve been getting a few questions here and there from readers of 'the ‘Wretch, so here’s a revival of that old blog feature!

This one comes from reader Andrew C:

Q: You’ve drawn so many caricatures of famous celebrities. However, has there ever been a celebrity that you were unable to draw because it was too difficult?

A: No such thing. You can caricature anybody. How far you can push the exaggerations and how good the recognizability is is all about your observations and execution of the caricature. Some faces may be more elusive to you than others, but all are solvable. Sometimes I’ll find a caricature just rolls off the end of my pencil without much effort, and others I’ll do several sketches and try several different approaches before I am satisfied.

It’s hard to determine why a given face might be troublesome with respect to caricature. Sometimes it’s that the face in question doesn’t have much of an “identity”. By that I mean it’s the type of subject who changes their look all the time. Some actors have “rubber faces” and seem to change from role to role, or even red carpet to red carpet appearance. Part of this, especially for women, is the cosmetics they wear can dramatically change how you perceive their face. Another reason is there isn’t any readily identifiable feature(s) or expression/presence elements that you can center your caricature around. That doesn’t mean the face is undrawable, it just means you don’t have an easy path to recognizability. Some faces have what I call “delicate” features, where none are particularly dominant and getting a likeness requires a balance.

What I mostly find to be the problem when struggling to capture a caricature is that I have made a wrong choice in my observations of the subject and am trying to make my caricature work with that choice instead of stepping back and reassessing. That’s like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. If I am having trouble with a subject, I try and take that step back and approach the face with a fresh eye. I’ll do a number of smaller rough sketches to explore around with different exaggeration choices and see if I can get a “hit”. Usually once you figure out the keys to a face, the rest is nothing but technique in drawing and rendering the features.

This one comes from R Baldwin:

Q: I’m a fan of the caricature and realistic paintings of Sebastian Kruger. It’s always puzzled me, though, as to how he acquires the rights to use the source photographs he does. I’m assuming it’s easier to use a photo for caricature since there is so much distortion that there is often no way to say what photo was used. In your case, you often use film images that can be obviously linked to an original photo while not looking exactly like it. Still, there is no other source for the iconic “Here’s Johnny,” Nicholson photo than “The Shining” so it’s obvious that even the caricatures of it have to originate from that film still. I have no idea how all the legal stuff works with that, but I assume that image is still under ownership of one or more entities. My main question, however, is about Kruger’s more realistic works, whether he is painting Springsteen or Howling Wolf. I assume he did not snap the photos himself and I never see a photo credit given. With Kruger’s public visibility, one would think any copyright infringement would be noticed pretty quickly. So how do you think Sebastian arranges it? Do you imagine he actually contacts all of the copyright owners before he paints their photo, or is it possible he just leaves it up to chance?

A: That’s a long question but there were several nuances to it that I thought need to be included.

First off, I have no idea what Sebastian does when using photos for his work. That’s a question for him. He might contact the original photographer or whoever owns the copyrights to the photo he uses and seeks permission or a license to use it as a reference. I seriously doubt he does. There is an exemption to copyright called “fair use”, which allows someone to use a copyrighted piece of intellectual property like a photo without needing permission or a license. There are a number of examples of what can be considered “fair use” of a copyrighted work. Factors like the purpose of the use, how much of the original work is being used, the nature of the original work, and the effect the fair use work in question affects the value or market of the original work all weigh in on whether something is fair use or copyright infringement.

With respect to using a copyrighted property as part of, or the basis of, a new piece of artistic expression like one of Sebastian’s portraits or a caricature, the “transformative” nature of the new work is often at the center or determining if use of the original copyrighted piece is fair use. “Transformative” uses take an original copyrighted work and transforms its appearance or nature in an obvious and major way so that the use of the original work no longer qualifies as infringement… the result is considered a new and unique piece of art.

Over the years many different copyright cases have caused the definition of what is transformative and what is not to evolve, but at its core are two basic questions:

1. Has the material taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning?

2. Was value added to the original by creating new information, new aesthetics, new insights, and understandings?

Really it’s all about taking the original and changing it enough that the artist creates a new piece of art with its own message, expression, etc. The artist injects their own creativity and aesthetic to the original source material, and the result is something new. Recognizing the source material within the new art does not mean it is not still fair use. Being transformative does not mean it is indistinguishable from the original work… just transformed.

Caricature by its very nature exaggerates its subjects, so it is by definition transformative. Unless the caricature is almost a photoshopped version of the original photo I would imagine the copyright holder of a specific photo would have a hard time convincing a court that using their photo as the basis of a caricature is not fair use of that image. Using a famous movie still is a little different, as a specific photo might not be the source of a copyright infringement claim, but rather the copyright of the film itself. That’s a slightly different conversation where editorial commentary/parody is probably involved.

Fair use gets a little dicier when it come to portraits. Without the exaggeration of a caricature to show immediate and obvious transformation from the source material, a portrait based on a particular photo needs to show it adds “new expression or meaning, new information, new aesthetics” etc. In other words it needs to be more than a skillful recreation of the photo using an artistic medium. The artist needs to show they bring something new to the table. They need to show they took the source material and created something unique and different from it. This can be done with color, painting techniques, incorporating some kind of free expression/editorial comment in it.

A pretty famous case which never actually went to court was the Shepard Fairey/Associated Press dispute over Fairey’s Obama “Hope” campaign image. Fairey used an AP owned photo of Barack Obama as the basis of his “Hope” graphic image. The AP sued him for copyright infringement in 2009. Fairey sued them back. A lot of shady actions by Fairey didn’t do him any favors, but the end result was they settled out of court with no one admitting their position was wrong. It would have been an important precedent had the case gone through the courts, because Fairey was claiming “fair use” due to the work being transformative. The central issue would have been if it really was transformative or not. It was certainly changed with respect to color and to a highly graphic rendering, but it was a literal exact copy of the original photo in proportion and form. It would have been interesting to see what the court would have decided.

Sebastian’s work, while being highly realistic, is also very painterly. He uses color and luminescence in shadows to play with contrast and create a very atmospheric aesthetic to his work. Brush work and the use of the medium are very apparent. And while Sebastian doesn’t do the super exaggerated caricatures he was known for in the 80’s and 90’s anymore, there is still subtle exaggeration in the portrait work he does. His paintings are not projected photos. That, coupled with his recognizable status as a fine artist, would probably make any copyright infringement case against him for using a particular photo as the basis of one of his works a very hard one to win in court. Based on all that, I doubt Sebastian seeks a license for any photos he uses as reference. Maybe Sebastian goes the “Weird Al” Yankovic route. Weird Al always asks permission from the original artists of a song he wants to do a parody of in an upcoming album, and if they say “no” he doesn’t do that parody. He doesn’t have to do this. His song parodies are a great example of “fair use”. Out of respect for the original artist he always asks. Again, only Sebastian can answer the question of how he handles it.

For me, I don’t worry about that. I often use more than one photo for a given caricature anyway, and even if the final caricature is one where a specific photo can be identified as being the main source of reference, the work is always substantially transformative.

DISCLAIMER: Note that I am not a lawyer. I don’t even play on on TV. The above should not be considered legal advice. You should not consider the discussion of legal matters by a caricature artist as a substitute for legal advice from a qualified lawyer, just as you should not take medical “advice” from a talk show host as a substitute for medical advice from an actual doctor or qualified medical scientist.

Finally, this one comes from Domininck Z:

Q: If a client has a low budget and only offers to pay you so much, do you sometimes offer to draw with a “lower” quality? I mean, are you maybe accepting a lower wage, if you can in return reduce the amount of work like maybe fewer sketches or less worked out coloring?

A: No. I would not intentionally do something with less effort or lesser quality in order to justify accepting a lower rate. If what a client wants me to do and what they are offering to pay for it don’t equate, I just won’t accept the job. My name is still on the art, and I don’t want to do something I would not be happy with. The paycheck is quickly spent on house payments, bills, or whatever, but my name remains under the artwork forever.

That said under certain circumstances, particularly with personal projects or commissions, I would charge less when using less time consuming techniques. I charge less for a simple pencil sketch than a would a full ink and watercolor painting simply because I would spend a lot more time on that ink and watercolor piece. Regardless, I still give each my full effort. That part never changes.

Thanks to our three mailbag contestants this week! You win absolutely nothing!

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