Onekama Art Program

My Pop Art Project
Randy Fraley

First to have a better understanding of my project one must have a history lesson. Pop art began in the 1960's and was an art style celebrating popular images. One famous pop artist is Ray Lichtenstein. Ray Lichtenstein became mainly known for his trademark style mimicking that of newspaper comics. How, you say, well he used dots for shading and a limited number of colors with heavy black outlines.

Ray Lichtenstein was one of the leading pop artists in the 1960's. Pop artists were known for recreating images that were popular that time entirely or in a different way. One such image is the recreation of a cartoon like flat image of a Campbell's tomato soup can. This image was done by another pop artist, Andy Warhol, and shows a large characteristic of pop art. Another characteristic often found in pop art is the exact replica of an image just with the use of different colors than the original. One such image is artist James Rosenquist's "Homage to Kiester's Endless House". However not all pop artists trapped themselves in recreating common or popular images. One such artist, George Segal, who made "The Curtain", a sculpture of an unfinished gender lacking human form.

Now you are probably wondering why this essay is called "My Pop Art Project. Well that is because my project was to paint a mimic of a newspaper style of comic. In fact our project as a class were to recreate one panel from a newspaper comic. I decided I would recreate a panel from one of my childhood favorites, "Garfield". I was having a hard time deciding which one when suddenly like a slap in the face it was there, a comic about understanding weather. The comic showed an angry Garfield standing with arms up where half of the weather is sunny and clear and the other half pouring rain. Garfield was right in the split of the weather and gave me a challenge. The pop art bit of the project was to use color dots for shading with a limited number of colors.

Like all projects it did have its ups and downs. The end result was awesome I thought and I believe it is one of my best paintings. I did a good job on the back ground I believe although the colors were a little difficult to match. One thing I had trouble with was remixing one specific color. I spent more time attempting to cover up mismatched colors than the painting itself. One major thing I need to work on is the quality of my black outlines. I couldn't keep a steady brush stroke during those. My pop art is I believe of a massive different style than that of famous pop artists because I didn't try to hide my brush strokes.

All in all pop art is a style that is based on the recreation of popular items in the artist view. Pop art also has many different styles from comic to sculpture . Attempting pop art can be fun for anyone willing to try and take their time. Pop art seems to revolve around molding aspects of the world commonly seen in different perspectives. In my opinion I would recommend pop art for any person especially teens needing inspiration to practice their hand at art.

Happy Hunting
by Madalyn Harvey

My comic painting, "Happy Hunting", incorporated the style of Pop Art and a comic from James Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip. Pop Art was mainly seen in the 1960's with artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist painting commercial images in the comic strip style. In "Happy Hunting." I used the dots that were so present in his art as the background of the "Calvin and Hobbes" frames.

Painting this was challenging for me because there are a lot of different aspects of the painting that you can't do all at once. All of the dots had to go on last, so ensuring the painting detail itself wouldn't be dotted was crucial. It also took a lot of time to outline everything in black, in accordance with the pop art style.

"Happy Hunting" was selected as the title because I chose to paint it on the opening day of hunting season, and thought it would be a funny title to show if the situation was reversed people would hate hunting season.

Pop Art
by Cordell Williams

I went through many comics to find the one that attracted me the most; A can, that most represents me. I then drew a grid on a large piece of paper then scaled the comic to fit. I used the same colors as the comic. The only two things I changed were the dots and the bubble. The dots were supposed to be a cabinet, and there was no bubble originally.

Over all I think my painting turned out awesome. The painting looked almost exactly how I envisioned. I struggled only .... with the dots. They were not my favorite part of the painting and definitely not easy. I believe the painting is a direct representation of myself.

I chose the saying in the bubble because that's how I felt that cat would feel. In my painting you might assume that the cat stole the dog's collar. But in the original strip, he was wearing it.

Cookies
by Truman Lee

Just recently have I created a "pop art" painting that was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein. It resembles his work by imitating his dot system and heavy black lines. Because it is an image of an epic comic book scene it stays true to the artist.

In order to create the piece I had to find an image to recreate. I decided to use an image of a feral woman with the words "GLADIATORS" in bold print. To enlarge the image I created a grid so the original proportions would remain. I painted the piece as close as I could to the original. Though in order to make it my own I changed the lettering from "Gladiators" to "Cookies". I came to this decision just for the reason it would be funny to have a ferocious woman shouting "Cookies".

I felt I did particularly well with the piece mainly due to the fact it has so much detail. I did better with the areas with less details like the face. I could have done better with the highly detailed hair if I would have taken the time to complete it. In the end I felt I had accomplished what I had intended.

The most thought I had put into this piece was in the title. I had come to the decision to entitle it "A Cold Girl Will Kill You In a Darkened Room". This was a lyric from a Doors song off of the Album "L.A. Woman". This line had popped into my head. Because the woman in the image seemed particularly savage and violent. Also if this was going to be a "pop art" piece I felt I might as well add a little "Pop Culture".

Jon's Long Night
by Drew Slevin

Jon's long night is the name of my painting. I found this project easier than most. I've always been better at drawing cartoons than more realistic. There is more variety to what you can do. Plus it's just so much more fun. I had some trouble with the painting, but I think it turned out well. What makes Lichtenstein different from mine is he gets close with his. The thing I could improve on is my painting.

What's up Dawg?
by Janique

Roy Lichtenstein was most known for his work on comic strips. His comic book style dates back to 1961. To accentuate the mass produced quality of his cartoons, he imitated the newspaper printing style. He did this by using patterns of colored dots to make the different tones. This was done by using fewer dots for light shades and many dots for black shades.

Pop artists recreated common objects and images as works of art in their own right. The Pop Art movement began as a reaction against abstract expressionism. Pop art embraced mechanical creations and repetitiveness of the mass media instead of abstract expressionism.

To create my painting I first had to draw graphs on the picture of my comic and my piece of paper. Then I copied the picture on to my paper by drawing from one square to the next. Afterwards I had to erase the graph on my drawing. Then I had to paint all of my comic. The last thing I did was put the dots on my painting. Then I had to make and rewrite the word bubble.

My painting is similar to Lichtenstein's work. It has the dots to represent his work. Instead of putting the dots on my characters I put them in the background. I did use the same technique as he did.

I struggled the most with the dots. It was the hardest to make them look the same and to not overlap each other. Some of them would for together and not look good. The easiest part was drawing the comic. It was the easiest and it turned out really good. To improve my painting I would have cleaned it up a little more. There was some messy parts where I put some dots on the people and didn't clean them up because I couldn't figure out how to make the same color again.

I did not come up with a title for my comic. I couldn't come up with anything that fits it. My thought bubble says, "What's up Dawg?" I made it say this because the comic is of three army people two of them are humans and one was a dog. The dog was standing up like a human with the other guy. Then there was a human guy walking like a dog would.

I thought this was a really fun project to do. It was one of the easier projects. I thought I also did really well on it. I enjoyed doing this project.