​Shirin Neshat
After my investigation into Neshat, I wanted to research an artist who puts his own caricatures and media into the news, and so I reached out to Morten Morland with quesitons:
From: Morten Morland
Sent: 05 May 2020 01:22
To: me!
Subject: A-level
Hi Sam,
Many thanks for your very good questions. I’ll try to answer them as best I can.
Are you non-political?
It’s hard to be a non-political political cartoonist, but I try to an “equal opportunities offender”, as someone once put it, in that I try to offend everyone equally. The job is to pick up on the oddities of politics and to prick the egos of those in power. Most recently that has meant the Tories getting most of the stick, but when was Labour in power, the same focus was on them.
As I’m Norwegian I can’t vote in UK elections, so have no party allegiances. That makes it easier.
It was harder to be balanced on something like Brexit, which was a single, albeit massive issue. I hardly ever do cartoons that are FOR something, and I also thought Brexit was a peculiar decision for the country, badly handled, so I suspect those on that side felt my cartoons were rather one-sided.
What role, and the importance of such a role, do you feel satire plays when recreating national and international events?
Satire is hugely important simply in its very existence. Being able ridicule those in power and not be arrested for it, is a sign of a healthy democracy. I think cartoons help distill often complex issues into easily understood snapshots of the debate. It’s about finding the essence of a story. And because it’s often humorous it also takes some of the pomposity out of the issues and the politicians, making the stories more accessible to people.
How much direction do you get from the paper when tasked to illustrate an event in the press?
None, really. The only guide is that the cartoon has to be about a major story - not just my pet issues. Most papers have what’s called an “editorial line”, which is basically the political view of the paper, but as a cartoonist, in the Times at least, that isn’t really an issue.
Saying that, there is one thing... Poo. The editor isn’t keen on poo. So any reference to such bodily functions must be kept to a minimum.
How important do you find humour is to tackle complicated subjects?
Humour is a brilliant tool. Unlike gag-cartoons - like Matt in the Telegraph - political cartoons aren’t always meant to be funny. But we often use it as it’s a great way to, like I mentioned before, remove the pomposity. When you take away all the strange language and weird procedures, it makes it easier to understand. And laughing at those in power when they mess things up, is healthy, even essential for democracy.
Your clients are just editorial and for newspapers, but also for advertising, design and animation, which do you prefer?
The freedom of editorial is great. I have a similar freedom when doing my animations, which essentially are more elaborate political cartoons, so enjoy that too. But the animations are A LOT more work.
The downside, if there is one, of that is that it’s more responsibility coming up with your own ideas.
With advertising, illustration and design you tend to have a brief. Something to work to. It’s sometimes rather nice to just be told what to draw, but I still prefer the freedom of the editorial platform.
Who are your biggest influences?
It varies a lot. I’ve had many different influences at different stages of my career. Because I’m self-taught I just looked at everything and everyone and tried to emulate the stuff I liked. Early on I studied other cartoonists’ work a lot. Past and present. Like Ralph Steadman, Gillray, KAL, Low etc. Now I tend to find influences in illustration and art, but the influence is more subtle. I don’t necessarily try draw like somebody else. I just get inspired by the way they paint light or compose a scene.
When drawing specific people, how do you decide which aspect of them to exaggerate/ emphasise?
Well, some people have massive ears, so I start by drawing massive ears. I basically look for distinguishable features. Something which makes them them. It can be anything, but their most prominent feature becomes the basis for the caricature. It’s not all facial features though. For some it might be their posture, body shape or even their clothes.
Their size is a slightly different. Cartoonists often tend to draw people with a lot of power and presence very large. Fatter and taller than they are, dominating over others. Then as their power diminishes they become smaller and smaller.
What media do you most commonly work with?
Ink. I draw a loose sketch in pencil then do the outline and painting with acrylic ink.
I sometimes do some things digitally after scanning, but that’s usually repairs if the ink has gotten out of control!
What does your work aim to say?
This is a huge question. I think I’ve touched on it a fair bit in my answers above, but the main thing is about pricking the egos of those in power. It’s important to have SOMETHING to say. You can spot the cartoons that haven’t straight away. They’re meaningless. I’ve done a few of them myself! Often though it’s not about making a grand statement. Sometimes it can be more like a question. “Isn’t this odd?” “Is this right?” “What the hell is he doing?!”
So you don’t have to always have a great, big firm opinion, but you have to have something to say.
As a side point, I’d add that I aim to say that politicians usually aren’t massive, evil villains. Many like to think that there are great conspiracies and that those in power are deliberately doing things to help themselves at the expense of others. Some are, I suppose, but usually they just get things wrong. They mess things up. They’re just a bit crap at governing. Some are spectacularly dim. These are points worth making, so I focus on that, rather than claiming they’re the the spawn of Satan.
How did you develop your style/ how and why has your style changed over time?
As I mentioned above, I looked at other people’s work a lot in the early days. Spent a lot of time looking at techniques and styles. The main thing however is that I drew and drew a lot! All the time. Your style sort of emerges as you go. You take little bits of inspiration from others, maybe you go through a phase of trying to emulate someone, but as you do more, your own style emerges. And it changes all the time as you try new things. Mine has gone through various different stages, Different lines, different colouring, painting style - but what’s interesting to see looking back over the years is that even when I was trying to copy someone else’s style, I can still see the bits which are mine. But you can only see that in hindsight.
A practical tip which makes a massive difference is materials. Finding materials that work for you is a big part of developing your style. If you paint, using good quality paper, brushes and paint makes a massive difference. But it’s not all about the price. The main thing is just to explore as many materials as you can and at some point you’ll find what works for you.
Hope this helps! - good luck with your course and the future! - All the very best - Morten
​
When it came to designing my own caricatures, I knew that the face would be the hardest part, so I went back to basics. The 4 designs below are extremely simplified. The didn’t take very long and essentially took a couple of strokes to complete. This means they lack a certain flair that Morland’s caricatures has, and all appear quite similar. However, I found the process of creating simple faces useful – it allowed me to explore different features and how to create them in a ‘cartoonish’ fashion. It also allowed me to think about what part of a person needs to be resembled in a caricature. These pictures are all recognisable – and the simple exploration of head shapes and the distance between mouths and noses and eyes built a foundation for the rest of my work.
I copied some of Morland’s Theresa May figures, thinking about all the different ways he had composed her. I splashed blue ink on the top, the same colour as her infamous jacket, and liked how the colour was not restricted within the lines I had drawn. In a way, it resembled the sewing I had done; abstract patterns over non-abstract figures.
Here I took a slightly different approach. I chose black and white media (pencil, pen, pen and wash) and drew friends and family instead of recognisable politicians. The pen and
ink are slightly more stylised and have a bit more character than the pencil drawings which are leaning towards just portraits of the people being drawn. However, it was still good to experiment with more people, and work out what I need to change. ALSO a huge part missing from everything on all the work above is colour – which I haven’t focused on yet. I start to introduce that below with some thread with Anzeri, but not here.
The caricatures above include black and white simplistic characters followed by slightly more detailed, realistic drawings. What I realised is that I needed to find a healthy middle ground. And to do that, I looked at my family, who obviously I know better than famous politicians, who to me are names matched to faces rather than people. This meant I could incorporate more into their caricatures, as I know more about them and their personality. So first up was my mum, a music teacher and oboe player. For the large watercolour piece, the shape of face is simplistic, but works. The watercolour is quite muddy in places, but I feel it was largely successful. I also injected some colour into the drawings on the left, which were some very early attempts at some caricatures. The water colour was more successful than the pencil, as it stood out more, yet both have room for improvement and don’t capture the figure it’s showing.
Next was my brother. I used bright red colour (the colour of his bedroom walls) as a background pushing him forward in the smaller picture abvoe, but I didn’t like the design as his face was missed out, despite it including some family jokes. So, I went back to this pencil drawing on the bottom right, however not making it super realistic, having sharp lines and simpler patches of shading. Above it I drew links back to Anzeri, this time with thicker embroidery thread which I found at the bottom of my sister’s sewing equipment. I liked the result, as the thread is obviously a lot more noticeable than the sewing done over the Neshat pictures, although I would have liked to have a wider variety of colours at hand. If I was to do it again I would have to race down to Hobbycraft.
Despite plenty of experiments with different media and ideas I still wasn’t succeeding where Morland did. Other than the decades of experience he had over me I wondered what else I could do. Studying his work yet further, I realised that first of all, it’s not just a picture of a face staring out the paper, it’s a whole body, a dynamic person. It has little boundaries, the face does not simply follow a 2 eyes 1 nose 1 mouth format it looks strange – funny – and works. So, to improve on what I have, I needed a point of reference, a set of photos that allow me to capture dynamic and different caricatures.
I collected lots of different cartoons from different papers, as seen below. This was to widen my understanding of what sort of cartoons frequent the papers, and as a response I created the cartoon on the right. Simple designs, it involves a topic related to the school I attend. There's a new crossing - but no one uses it.
However, the most successful caricature I made is on the right. Tying links back to Anzeri again, but this time with different thread. It enhanced the drawing, brought a new dynamic to the drawing. It unleashes a hidden voice and meaning.