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{{Infobox book
| italic title = Interview with Thierry Coquelet
| name = Interview with Thierry Coquelet
| image = EFSpring2015_Page_14_Image_0001
| image_size = 260px
| border = yes
| alt =
| caption = 
| author = {{unbulleted list|Tasiir Franz|Amy Aboud}}
| illustrator =
| subject = 
| genre = Interview
| published = [[EF Issue 2015.2]]
| pub_date = 
| media_type = 
| pages = 12-17
| preceded_by = 
| followed_by = 
| notes =
| website = {{unbulleted list|[http://wiki.caricature.org/wiki/EF_PDFS/EF201?.?.pdf Full Issue PDF],|courtesy of {{URL|caricature.org}}}}
}}
An interview with Thierry Coquelet found on pages 12-17 of the digitally released Spring 2015 EF.

==Article Transcript==
[[File:EFSpring2015_Page_15_Image_0002.jpg|266px|thumb|right|James Brown,
Sometimes when I do a piece,
I try to attack a particular
technique. This goal with
James Brown was to achieve
very precise hatching in pencil.
The grain and texture of
his skin in the photo is what
captured me, and this is what
I tried to capture.
Graphite on paper and digital
- 2013]]
[[File:EFSpring2015_Page_19_Image_0002.jpg|266px|thumb|right|Leo Tolstoy, ballpoint pen on paper - 2010]]
[[File:EFSpring2015_Page_15_Image_0001.jpg|266px|thumb|right|Émile Zola,
Zola is a well-known French
writer from the end of the
19th century. But more than
a writer, he was a humanist
and took part in the famous
Dreyfus affair in order to
prove that Dreyfus was innocent.
The reference picture
was a good sample of the
special natural light used in
photography at this time that
I enjoy a lot.
Ballpoint pen on paper - 2010]]
'''Tasiir and Amy:'''It was a gift to meet [[Thierry Coquelet]]
and an honor to have the opportunity
to talk to him for the members of
ISCA. In life, when you encounter a
soul like Thierry, you know you are in the
presence of someone very special. He
is a gentle, kind and thoughtful human
being, and this translates through his
expression as an artist. He was recently
a guest speaker at [[Eurocature]] 2014 in
Vienna, Austria. It is here where he took
time to share his thoughts on his artistic
philosophy and techniques.
Thierry Coquelet is from Angers, France,
and works in the architecture field. He is
also an accomplished artist and caricaturist.
Thirty of his caricatures were
recently published in the book “Wanted!”
which features caricature drawings of
cowboys and Indians by seven pivotal
caricature artists of our modern time. In addition, he is currently working on
a book with Jean-Marc Borot and (Jim)
Maëster that will be published in the
near future.

'''Q:''' When do you first remember being
interested in art?

'''A:''' My first interest in art was when I was 6
or 7, watching my father draw and paint.
I loved to watch him create figurative
landscape paintings as an amateur artist,
and as a child his work was very realistic
to me. I tried to reproduce what I saw
him create. My dad is a part of me, and
my artwork. I actually began drawing
before I could write.

'''Q:''' You often use a ballpoint pen for your
caricatures. This is not a very forgiving
tool. Why do you choose to use the
ballpoint pen?

'''A:''' I use a ballpoint pen with my architecture
renderings, so it is a tool I always
have around me. It was just a natural
transition for me to use it with my caricatures
in my art. I have been drawing
with a ballpoint pen since the 1970s. Although
people said it was not popular to
draw with it —it was obvious to me —a
Pilot Fine for renderings and sometimes
a Bic Cristal for sketches. The Pilot Fine
allows me to draw very thin and straight
lines, while the Bic, with its bigger ball,
is a softer and more flexible tool. I use
one or the other, depending on both
the kind of drawing and paper being
used. Some people, when they look at
my work containing a lot of blackness,
think it is some sort of print work, but
it is created with a pen. The ballpoint
pen is a tool with many constraints. The
main disadvantage of a ballpoint pen
is that you can’t erase like with a pencil and if I make a mistake, I have to start the
drawing again. Another disadvantage is
when you begin a line, it can make an ink
droplet. I will sometimes use a paintbrush
with white acrylic to hide the ink droplets.
The drawings I do with the pen are very
small. Most of them can easily fit on an
A5 format. The time I spend on even the
smallest drawings is a very long time. I use
a lot of crosshatching. The first thing that
comes to mind when I think of crosshatching
is the work of Gustave Doré, the
famous French painter and engraver of the
19th century. What I learn from looking at
his work is that crosshatching is a way to
develop volume, not just shades of gray.

'''Q:''' You have a very unique and beautiful
way of looking at the creation of a piece
of art. Talk to us a little bit about how
you come up with the concept for your
pieces.

'''A:''' I have a certain freedom, being a nonprofessional,
to draw the things I want to
draw, not politicians or pop culture, but
what I want to draw. The act of NOT drawing
these characters is just as important
to me as drawing the things that ARE
important to me.
When I look at reference photos, I look for
both the likeness and for the soul of the
person in the photos. When I first work on
a piece, I do not go for the likeness. I work
on the likeness afterwards. Finding a likeness
is part of the research process. It is
the emotional part of the photo that is the
main focus for me. Likeness is based on
emotions, not the opposite. This is not a
choice that I made consciously, but rather
I just noticed that it happened to develop
this way, for me. Many caricature artists
work differently. Some begin with the
physical likeness and they find the soul of
their subject during this exploration. In the
same way, some musicians start a song by
writing the music before the lyrics, while
others create the opposite way.
I have spoken with other caricature artists
and we have come to the conclusion that
80 percent of the drawing is the technical
work —like the structure, the shapes, the
texture of the skin, the hair, etc… But,
there is 20 percent of the drawing that is
invisible, that we only feel. This 20 percent
is that which captures the personality of
the person, what the person is like on the
inside… the soul of the person, their truth.
It is this 20 percent that validates the technical
work on the 80 percent.
There is still a balance between technique
and emotion. Sometimes the way I
exaggerate or render the piece can make the SOUL likeness better. For example,
if I had chosen to use watercolor to
paint Marlene Dietrich based on the
same shapes, I do not think I would have
arrived so closely to a soul likeness, in
the end. (I’m not a good watercolorist!)
The subject is important, but so is the
execution.

'''Q:''' Tell us about your execution process…

'''A:''' When I used to do portraits, I felt the
look of the eyes was very important. I
used what I knew about portraits and
applied it to caricature. I found it worked.
I found caricature can express as many
things as portrait. I also used what I
knew about architecture to caricature. It
can take me between 2 days and 1 week
to complete a work. Some caricatures
come easy, and others are hard to pen.
So, in my first sketches, I try to catch
the emotion inspired by the reference
picture I chose. Thus I try to connect to
the person I am drawing. Of course, I
also try to find a way to the physical
likeness, but this is not the main goal
at that time. These first sketches look
much more like dirty doodles than what
we can expect from real sketches. When
a sketch becomes interesting to me, I
scan it in order to start fixing the shapes
on the screen, always according to my feelings about this person. The digital
process allows me to cut, move, stretch,
reduce or expand all the parts of the face
very quickly and easily. Then I print the
result, put the print on the light table,
draw another sketch from this one, scan
it again, etc., until I’m quite satisfied
with the result. At the end, I do a final
rendering. As you can see, this is a much
more sensitive than intellectual exercise.
In a way, it looks like modeling on a sort
of architecture, a structure that must
become stronger and more efficient,
step by step.
I have a technique that I have developed
that works for me, my life and my day
job. I work a little in the morning, a little
in the afternoon and then a little in the
evening. These breaks allow me to come
back and see things with fresh eyes. I
both benefit from and allow for time
between stages of creating my drawings.

'''Q:''' Some of your reference photos
are very old and grainy, like your
reference for your Tolstoy drawing.
How do see things within a grainy
photo?

'''A:''' Sometimes you can’t see things, so
you look at yourself and ask, “What
does this wrinkle look like on me?” and
then re-create it. With Tolstoy, I had to IMAGINE his beard. I also wanted
to create whimsical movement in the
drawing. I could not reproduce the beard
because the photo was blurred, due to
its bad resolution. So, on another piece
of paper, I doodled what I thought his
beard would look like, and used a lot of
movement. Then when I found something
I liked, I added it to the drawing.
When you are working from a bad photo,
you have to use the imagination. When
I use my imagination, it is MY opinion
being added to the piece. I normally try
not to do this. When I draw, normally, I
try to put the opinion of the character
I am drawing into the piece, so I like to
try to stick to the photo a bit more. A
drawing is a lot like a documentary of
the character’s life. When we exaggerate,
we are already using a great deal of
our imagination, our “opinion,” in the
piece. So, I do not try to put myself in
the drawing too much more beyond the
exaggeration, but rather make it like a
documentary of the person I am drawing.
There is a spirited game between
me and the characters I am drawing. The
drawing will actually speak to me as it’s
being created and tell me how to render
it. Sometimes, I want to draw fast and
use fewer lines so a piece will go quicker.
But, then the character of the piece will
demand more lines as I am creating, and I prefer drawing from a photograph than
from the real life except for landscapes—
it’s easier. In a way, I guess it would not
work if I call Woody Allen or Michelle
Pfeiffer to tell them, “Hello, would you
come at home today because I’d like to
draw a caricature of you?” On a photo,
you have the light and the lines all in
front of you, and all the time you need. If
I can’t get a drawing to work exactly off
the photo, I will draw without the photo
and use my imagination, using what I
remember from the drawing. I then will
look at the photo again and tighten the
drawing. One of the things I like about
old photography is many times there is a
special light on the subject and darkness
in the background. Pieces with darkness
or lots of shadow in the background take
forever. Sometimes I draw a character
from the 19th century and I choose not
to represent the dark background — just
a halo around the head and the shoulders—
and it seems like something is
missing. Sometimes the background
is very important because it gives the
character its depth.

'''Q:''' What are some caricatures where you
are satisfied with your outcome?

'''A:''' Well, I am not really satisfied with any
of them, always considering that each
drawing is the sketch for the next one.
But, the pieces that do work for me
are usually the ones that I took great
pleasure in creating. For example, I
took pleasure in creating both Marlene
Dietrich and Virginia Woolf. Sometimes
I feel like the character of the piece will
speak to me and tell me what to do. For
example, Virginia Woolf would talk with
me and say, “Let’s go… let’s try this …
let’s keep going.” With Woolf, I asked
myself three questions before doing her
caricature: (1) Can I draw someone so
tortured and tragic? (2) Is it decent to
draw someone so tortured and tragic?
(3) How do I do this? I spent a long time
with the drawing of her, and with her in
spirit as I drew her. I found her company
to be quite pleasant.
My friend Jean Mulatier says he stays
humble when he draws because when
one reproduces a person’s soul, it is not
yours, it is theirs, and you have to ask
the subject what is the good way to
present them.

'''Q:''' What makes a caricature successful
to you?

'''A:''' LIKENESS.

'''Q:''' Who are some caricature artists whom
you admire?

'''A:''' Two people I admire tremendously, from
when I was young, are Jean Mulatier and
Jim Maëster. I consider them to be masters.
I discovered Mulatier on Saturdays
watching a TV show called “Tac au tac”
doing a caricature of Leonid Brezhnev.
The way he drew faces seemed to be in
perfect harmony with each other. What
inspired me long-term with Mulatier was
how he sculpted the faces. It is perfect
the way he establishes the balance
between the plains and the crevices in
the face. What also is very impressive
is the balance in the humanness in his
drawings and the respect he has toward
his subject. He has wonderful accuracy
in his portrayal and the likeness.
His work in the 1970s was really revolutionary in the world of caricature. It had
the precision of a photograph at that
time. His works were published worldwide.
Mulatier drew his Jimmy Carter
Time Magazine cover with a “000” brush.
In other words, this is a brush with maybe
1 hair. It took him a week to do the
teeth. Over time, he simplified his work
by applying the crosshatching technique.
He has evolved his crosshatching in a
personal way where it is almost like a
personal calligraphy.
In describing his work, he said he does
not distort, but he alters the proportions.
Something he taught me was NOT to be
aggressive, but to focus on the likeness.
Sometimes the enthusiasm we have
toward caricature can turn us toward
cynicism. Mulatier says one must NOT
exaggerate exaggerations. Accentuation
of a certain trait on the face, a reaction of cause and effect, is just the tip of the
iceberg (for example, making a big nose
big). It is evident and easy to decode
this in his work and much more difficult
to put it into practice! He is a great
teacher. Even as a child —everything
seemed clear to me in his works. Many
people compare my work to his work,
which I consider a great honor, but he is
a mountain and I am a pebble.
The other person who influenced me
intensely is Jim Maëster. Maëster always
introduces the second soul into his drawings.
For example, it is easy to get lost in
the look of his wonderful caricature of
Marilyn Monroe.
Maëster is very popular in comics in France. What I liked about his comics
is they are very dense with a lot of
movement in them. His work is full of
humor and contains lots of caricatures
of famous people and parodies with film
and TV. You have to read his works more
than once to find all the details he has
hidden in his comics. The spirit of his
work invokes the spirit of Mad Magazine.
Maëster himself talks a lot about the
admiration he has for people like Mort
Drucker. Always the comic book artist —
he also exaggerates the background, the
accessories and the body. Many times
with caricature the focus is only a drawing
of the face, but Maëster includes
the body, background and accessories
—what the French call the secondary
traits. He does not forget to exaggerate
the ears, for example, and the clothing
folds. I mention this because I forget
to exaggerate the ears sometimes. He
is also wonderful at exaggerating the
hands. This is something else I admire
—the hands are considered difficult to
draw. One of the things he masters well
is he makes it all about the whole piece,
and it all fits together. It’s not just a face.
He also is the best in caricaturing female
faces in comics, from my own point of
view. Both Mulatier and Maëster’s approach
are very different, but both portray
something positive in their subject,
where their work transcends caricature
and allows them to portray the depth
of their subject. Moreover, those of us
who have the joy to know them know
that they are wonderful people. Their
influence on my work is tremendous.

'''Q:''' What are your thoughts on digital
caricature vs. traditional caricature?

'''A:''' Sometimes I do digital caricature,
ALWAYS beginning with a traditional
sketch. I prefer traditional to digital,
because caressing the paper with a
traditional tool is much more sensual
than touching plastic to plastic. Having
said that, I recognize that the digital
work allows me to do something in a day
that would take me five days using my
traditional method. There is a legitimate
question that I ask myself from an economic
point of view — whether it makes
sense to spend so much time on a piece
that is consumed so quickly in our digital
world. From an economic point of view,
it is not viable. I do not know an editor in
France today who would pay a traditional
artist the amount that would be due
to them for doing a piece that a digital
artist could do in much less time.

'''Q:''' In your eyes, where do you see the
future of caricature?

'''A:''' Well, in France, caricature is not what
the editors prefer to publish. All the
covers of American magazines that
Jason Seiler painted these last years, for
example, do not exist in France. Here,
these kinds of magazines would use
photos instead of caricatures. Maybe
caricature is considered much more like
a joke than an art, even though France
is also known for its very long history of
caricature. A few newspapers publish
caricatures either on their front page
(“Le Monde”) or they are fully dedicated
to caricature (“Charlie Hebdo” and “Le Canard enchaîné”, etc.), but this sort of
caricature is generally based on biting
and corrosive humor about politicians,
religions and society. It is a kind of social
journalism much more than an artistic
consideration.
Many of us are trying to work our caricatures
using likeness and not wickedness.
We are attempting to make caricatures
with a lot of balance as a tribute to
represent the character. There is not
ugliness … exaggerating for exaggeration’s
sake.
In France, there is no equivalent to ISCA,
Eurocature or Asociación Española de
Caricaturistas; but, some very good
friends of mine are actually working on
this, because we are aware of the importance
of caricature as an artistic and
cultural media, including in the matter of
the protection of the author’s rights. So,
I really hope that the future of caricature
will be better in my country.
As you can see, the future of caricature
is not a debate between digital and
traditional artists, but rather that the
existence of caricature as an art form is
at stake.
Some caricature artists like Jean-Marc
Borot and Charles Da Costa, for example,
have their work published in books.
These are good samples of a new breath
in caricature happening in publishing.
Maëster himself became a publisher in
order to promote caricature as a true
art form. “Wanted!” is a real art book
much more than a single illustrated book
about Western movies. As a nonprofessional,
I just try to contribute to this
promotion.

'''Q:''' What advice would you like to give to
artists who want to learn caricature?

'''A:''' Draw, draw, draw! The best way to learn
is to draw often, and not just caricature,
but drawing in general. First, draw
shapes, lights, shadows, lines, faces,
landscapes… all things. Second, it’s important
to see what the artists over time
have drawn. Learn from history. A great
artist for this is Watteau —an artist in the
18th century. He is a master in sketching.

'''Q:''' Thank you for your time with us today.
Are there any last thoughts you would
like to share with us?

'''A:''' In caricature, and in art, happiness is not
the goal but the path. Thank you very
much.

==See Also==
* [[Relevant Wiki Link]]
* [[Relevant Wiki Link]]
==External Links==
* [http://caricature.org/join-us External Link if needed]


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Interview with Thierry Coquelet - Revision history

Rschwartzman at 18:32, 25 June 2020

Rschwartzman at 18:32, 25 June 2020

Rschwartzman: Created page with "{{Infobox book | italic title = Interview with Thierry Coquelet | name = Interview with Thierr..."