Art: Printing and Sketching

This term, we have been studying the work of two famous Pop Artists, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Both were famous in the 1980s in New York and have made a big impact on art and culture, with their vibrant works.

To begin with, we completed an artist study of Andy Warhol and learned about what the phrase ‘Pop Art‘ means. We found out that Andy used a printing technique in his art, where he would use different colours and repeated prints to create works such as Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe. We liked the range of colour that he used and we also looked at how repeated prints are used in the environment around us, such as in wallpapers, fabrics and carpets too.

We then went on to study Keith Haring and looked at a few of his piece of art such as Barking Dog and Andy Mouse (a piece that featured a cartoon of Andy Warhol!) and spoke about what we noticed. Keith’s art involved faceless cartoons, again, featuring lots of colour. We imitated his art, Dolphin Ride, to practice drawing in his style. He drew cartoons which we learned was something that was created to make people laugh or think, and lots of them were very expressive, despite not having faces. As part of our innovation process, we thought about our own versions of Keith Haring’s work and imagined a cartoon character that we could create. As our topic is Historical Heroes, we wanted to design a hero character that could be done quite simply, similar to the work of Haring.

We sketched this to begin with, with the idea of printing these, combining his work with Andy Warhol’s. Once we were happy with our designs, we drew them onto a stencil, which we could trace on top of a polystyrene print. We went downstairs to the Creativity Room to have a try at rolling paint onto our tile. We had to try to ensure to get an even coat of paint, and we then carefully pressed this down onto our paper. It was quite tricky to do, but we tried to make our own version of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art, with our own designs. Reflecting on our work, we realised that our lines were not defined enough so consequently, it was quite tricky to see some of our work. This being said, we were still really happy with our results!

We have also practiced sketching using a range of pencils, from HB, 2B, 4B and 6B. We watched a short video about shading, and gave this a try. We also focused on line work and being precise when drawing. On top of all of this, we also learned a little bit about cross-hatching and shading with colour! After this, we created our final cartoon, using different pencils to create definition in the areas that we want. We wanted thick lines and a thick, dark line around the edge of our cartoon, as this is what Keith Haring has in lots of his work. These piece of work will be on display in our classroom and we are so happy with them!

What did you like best about your artwork? If you were to print again, what would you do differently?