Who is your favorite Pop Artist?



Fifth graders compared and contrasted the work of three American Pop Masters:  Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Wayne Thiebaud.  Here are their thoughts on who is their favorite...

Roy Lichtenstein

"He made more of story-telling pieces.  I love cartoons, too."

"His comic style is random but friendly."

"He tries to make you laugh but at the same time he shows you his artistic comics.  He's enjoying himself drawing and he knows when he finishes his peers will enjoy his pictures, too."
"Roy is my favorite because he is extremely expressive and strange.  With bright colors and unnatural backgrounds, he's very contrasting and still it works together well."

Wayne Thiebaud

"Some of them look simple, but are very detailed."
"He drew cake.  I like cake."
"I like him the best out of these artists because he painted food that looked very real.  The more interesting the better."

Andy Warhol

"He was crazy with his art and he let it pop.  I like that he was different and did his own thing."
"He does great pop art and printmaking.  He was very famous.  Andy does great work."
"He does printmaking and he repeats his work."


And one student was not impressed - "None are my favorite.   I don't like drawing real things.  I like using my imagination instead of copying.  I feel that they will never be great because people will have seen it before.  If I draw something from my imagination, no one will have seen it."



Kindergarten self-portraits, Picasso style

Pablo Picasso used color to help express feelings, like during a sad part of his life as a young man when he painted everything blue.  When he fell in love, he painted with lots of rosy pink.  The kindergarteners chose their favorite colors and painted happy self-portraits.  We discovered how to lighten and darken the value of our favorite color by mixing tints and shades.

"Goodbye Matisse, Hello Hokusai..."

 ... say the Dolvin second grade art students.  We wrap up our Matisse mini-unit with our "Beasts of the Sea" style collages, now on display, and begin one of my favorite units of the year... the Art of Japan!  This week, we are learning a bit about Katsushika Hokusai and his many views of Mount Fuji.  We are using our sketchbooks (Hokusai called his sketchbook "manga") to practice drawing views of the mountain from near and far, and in different seasons - everyone's favorite is when it is surrounded by blooming pink cherry blossoms.  Soon after, we will create traditional ceramic Japanese tea bowls. 

"From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of great note. At the age of seventy-two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at eighty I shall have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvelous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own." - Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)