How to Create Pop Art

You will likely have heard of this artistic movement during your art classes, characterized by the use of vibrant colors and a strangely familiar aesthetic. Today, I have created a tutorial for you to follow in order to explore this movement, understand its key elements, refresh your memory, and then move on to a practical example.

What is Pop Art?

In the mid-1950s, in the English-speaking world, primarily in the United Kingdom and then in the United States, one question often arose: is art understandable to the general public?

If we consider the context, we can see that the art of that era was largely dominated by innovative and conceptual trends that fascinated the most cultivated circles of society.

However, this left a huge void for the vast majority of people.

It therefore became necessary to find a solution.

Faced with this disconnect, some artists found an answer in popular media: television, magazines, comics, and everyday images. They then decided to use these visual codes to create art that was more accessible, familiar, and universal.

Main characteristics of Pop Art

Here are the essential elements of Pop Art:

Use or inspiration of cultural icons.
Development of a striking and graphic aesthetic.
Irony and critique of the contemporary world.
Use of reproducible techniques, such as screen printing.

Andy Warhol, an iconic artist

Andy Warhol is one of the most well-known artists in the history of art. His contributions to this movement have left a lasting imprint on the collective imagination.

His work displays a recurring use of screen printing, a technique that enabled him to create multiple reproductions of the same piece. In this format, he presented both widely recognized celebrity portraits and everyday objects that everyone could have at home, an iconic example being his famous soup cans.

Drawing a Pop Art portrait

For this tutorial, prepare your graphite and colored pencils, a black ink pen or fine marker, colored markers if you have them, or even acrylic paint if you prefer. We are going to create a portrait in the Pop Art style, inspired by the examples mentioned above.

The grid for portraits

The idea is to create a portrait of a celebrity. For my example, I will use a reference image from my archives. But what’s most important to me is that you discover the grid, a tool used by many artists, especially hyperrealists, to create a drawing with almost perfect precision.

To start: Draw a 2 × 2 cm grid on both the paper where you will create your artwork and on your reference image, which you can print out for convenience. To avoid any confusion, number the horizontal boxes (at the top) with numbers (1, 2, 3, 4…) and the vertical boxes with letters (a, b, c, d…). This will allow you to easily position each element, according to a simple nomenclature, similar to that used in chess.

Once the grid is ready on both supports, start outlining the drawing square by square, using the guide lines to position the shapes accurately.

For example: the right eye is located in squares F4 and F5, the eyebrow just above, while the left eye is one square further, starting before the middle of square F7.

Now that your sketch is complete, you can start inking. Use your pen and draw each line by mimicking the movement of a quill: start with a very thin line, widen it towards the middle, then thin it out again to finish. This will give your drawing a very aesthetic touch.

Once the outline is finalized, fill in the areas that need deep black, such as most of the hair, the part of the neck under the chin, and the space between the teeth.

Add a Pop Art touch

Erase the grid before applying color: these lines should not appear in the final result. For the entire image, use bright colors, applied purely and evenly, without gradients.

Use polka dot or two-tone stripe patterns to mimic the style of American comics. Combinations of blue, red, and yellow work particularly well, as they create contrast while remaining harmonious.

For the skin, stick to base shades. Do not add glazes or transparent layer effects: we are looking for a flat and vectorial rendering, faithful to the Pop Art style. Shadows must remain bold and without gradient.

Finally, apply the same lipstick color as the background or hair: this repetition of color brings coherence and balance to the composition, while enhancing the visual impact.

Here is the result: a portrait in the pure Pop Art style. I hope this exercise has enabled you to better understand this artistic movement and capture its spirit, a mix of criticism, humor, and fascination for popular culture.

Writer and Illustrator: Bryam