I have always liked drawing caricatures.
Maybe because caricature gives me an excuse to look at people very closely.
Their faces, expressions, body language, weird little habits, the things they love, the things they carry around with them. Sometimes even the way they stand in a photograph tells me something about them.
And then I get to exaggerate all of that.
I actually often find myself more attracted to loose, unfinished lines than to a perfectly completed drawing.
In a finished artwork, every line starts competing with the others to be perfect. But I love the rough pencil strokes, the searching lines, the marks that remain visible underneath the ink. There is something honest about them.Some of my favourite caricatures were never even commissions. I drew them spontaneously for friends and people I care about. Sometimes to surprise someone. Sometimes to celebrate them. Sometimes simply because I felt like drawing that person.
Then there are the commissioned ones.
I love drawing couples.
One of the interesting things about couple caricatures is that I am often drawing two people I have never met. I only have their photographs to work from.
So I start reading them.
What are their expressions like? How do they stand beside each other? Who looks more serious? Who looks more mischievous? What little things can I exaggerate without making them hate me?
Because that is the difficult part.
You have to make it funny enough that they enjoy it, but not so funny that it becomes offensive. And you can’t make it so safe that it becomes boring.
Finding that little sweet spot is probably the hardest part.
Most of the time, I manage.
But I don’t always get to keep these drawings online.
Sometimes relationships end. People get divorced. People move on.
I might have to take this post down in the future too. Who knows.
The funny thing is, the caricatures that survive the test of time get a little public life of their own. They hang in someone’s living room and become part of their family.
Others probably end up in a drawer or a storage box.
But I get to keep the drawings.
They become little records of a particular time, a particular relationship, and a particular version of two people.
And perhaps that is what I like most about them. They are evidence that, at some point in their lives, two people belonged somewhere together.
Family caricatures are another favourite.
They can also be some of the best gigs when you are trying to make a living as a freelance caricature artist.
Usually someone sends me a family photograph from a memorable holiday or some important moment and asks me to turn it into something they can keep forever.
But every family member has their own demands.
One person wants to be a superhero. Someone else wants to be on a jungle safari. Someone wants the family cat included. Someone wants to be sitting in a Batmobile.
I once had Mr. Zunaed Rabbani ask me to turn his family photograph into a superhero ensemble.
Of course, he had to be Batman, sitting proudly in his Batmobile.
His wife became Superwoman, the newborn became Wonder Woman, and the other kid became Flash.
The challenge was getting everyone into the same picture, giving each person their own little moment, and still making the whole thing feel exciting.
Another family caricature I drew had a grandfather in the middle of a storytelling session, playing Uno with his grandchildren, surrounded by all the family cats.
Every family has its own little universe.
That is what makes these drawings fun.
And unlike many couple caricatures, family caricatures usually have a much longer shelf life.
People keep them.
They become part of the family.
And yes, there is another practical advantage.
More faces usually mean better, more handsome payments.
These days, I don’t actually do many commissioned caricatures.
Maybe for about two weeks a year, I open up a little window and do around 10–15 caricatures.
So, to everyone who patiently waits for that little window every year—thank you.
It genuinely means a lot that you still remember my work, wait for me, and trust me with something so personal.
I really wish I could do more.
But perhaps doing fewer of them has also made me appreciate them more.
Because whether it is a wedding gift, a family portrait, a birthday present, or simply a spontaneous drawing for a friend, a caricature is ultimately a very simple thing.
Someone is saying:
This person matters to me.
And the drawing is my way of saying:
I noticed.