Embedded Files
A Quick History...
A Quick History...
Pop art emerged in America and Britain in the 1950s-60s, drawing inspiration from popular culture. This movement began as a revolt against traditional views on what art should be. Young artists found that school art theory did not reflect their real world. They reflected on Hollywood, advertising, packaging, pop music, fashion and comic books. Pop artist, Richard Hamilton, described it as transient, expendable, low cost, mass produced, young, witty, sexy, glamorous big business. Important figures in the movement include Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Eduardo Paolozzi. Art critics now describe this as the beginning of post-modernism. This style of Photography and Graphic design had far reaching effects on the history of design, advertising and the Art world.
Andy Warhol, Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964
Kieth Haring, 1987 Untitled (Dance)
Roy Lichtenstein, Pop Art Comic
Andy Warhol, Kiss Goodbye
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962
Spotify 2022 Wrapped
YOUR TASK
Your task is to turn a contemporary pop-cultural icon in to a pop art graphic that uses contrasting colours. To do so, follow the instructions below.
Remember: Contrasting Colours are colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel, like red and green, or red-orange and blue-green. Near contrasting colours are colours close, but not quite opposite each other, like yellow-green and violet. Cool colours are blues and greens, warm colours are oranges, red and pure yellow.
View the video Instructions here.
Find an image of a contemporary (modern) pop-cultural icon that you identify with. Use Google images to search for this. When doing this, use tools (on the far right just below the search bar). Click on size and select large. If you hover your cursor over an image, you should see its pixel dimensions in the bottom right corner. Aim for something where both numbers are over 1000. This means it is a high quality image.
Right click, save as and save the image in to your Graphic Design folder. Once you have saved it, locate the image in your folder and right click, open with and select Adobe Photoshop. Your image should now be open in Photoshop.
File>New> Create a Photohop canvas that is 1000x1000 pixels and 300 Pixels/Inch. Ctrl+A to select your image, Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste on to your new canvas. Ctrl+T to resize your image and move it to fill the canvas or show the most aesthetic compisition (e.g. you may choose to fill more than the canvas to crop part of the image out).
Go to Image in the top bar, select Adjusments>Brightness/ Contrast. Toggle the bars to increase both and give your image a strong sense of light and dark. It does not have to look realistic.
Next, go to Image>Adjustments >Threshold (not the adjustment palette) adjusting the threshold until you see the facial features. Now your image is made up of only black and white shapes, with no values in between. This is also called a high contrast image.
Use Ctrl>Shift>N to create a new layer. Label this 'Colour 1.' Toggle back to the original picture and use the magic wand tool and select the black. You should see the “marching ants” around the black area. Toggle to your new layer called 'Colour 1' and use the paint brush tool to colour in this selection. You can choose your colour by clicking on the top colour square at the bottom of your tool bar. A colour picker window will pop up. You do not have to choose the most highly-saturated (most brilliant and pure) version of the colour. You can try a subdued version of the colour for more a more sophisticated colour scheme.
Ctrl+D to deselect when you have finished the colouring.
You should now have a layer called 'Colour 1' with the parts of the image that were black coloured in your choice of colour. Use Ctrl>Shift>N to create a new layer and call it 'Colour 2.' Toggle back to the original image and use the magic wand tool to select the white area. Now go to your 'Colour 2' layer and choose another colour to colour in the area you have selected.
You should now have a two coloured image that you can save if you would like to. If you would like to add a third colour, create a third new layer and label it Colour 3. You can then use the polygonal lasso tool (near the top left of the side bar) and draw around your subject by clicking to create points. Once you have created your shape, it will turn it to marching ants and you can paint in your selection a third colour.
Adjust your colours until you are happy with the combination. (Try the Adjustment called Hue Saturation, for example.) Note: The face will seem to pop out at you more if the background colour is cooler, lighter or duller than the face colour (see examples above).
File>Save As>Save As Photoshop document. Save a Photoshop file version of your image in your documents in case you wish to continue editing it.
File>Export >Export As>Change File Type from PNG to JPEG. Save. Use this to save your image as a JPEG. This file type can be used online and on social media.
IMAGE INSPIRATION
EXTENSION
EXTENSION
Save your image as face1 and then use the Hue/Saturation Adjustment tool to get another colour combination and save as face2.
Repeat until you have 4, 6, or 9 versions of the face, named face1, face2, face3, etc.
Select File>New and create a Photoshop canvas that is the same ratio as before (1000x1000 pixels) but decide how many images you want to include. If you want 3x3 as in this example, then make your canvas 3000x3000 pixels. Open all of the face files you have created.
Select All>Copy and Paste into the new canvas. Move them into position and save your final with a new name.
Lil Nas X - 3 Colour Example
Lil Nas X - 3 Colour Example
In this imaged, I followed the instructions as shown in the video.
Lil Nas X - 3 Colour Diptych
Lil Nas X - 3 Colour Diptych
In this image, I followed the instructions in the video but I completed the extension task and made 9 different variants of contrasting colours on a 3000x3000 pixel canvas.
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