So, you see all that Andy Warhol stuff, right? The bright colors, the famous faces, especially the women he painted. Looks dead simple, doesn't it? That's what I thought. Figured I’d give it a whirl, see what all the fuss was about. Just a bit of fun, a little project to get my hands dirty.
First off, I needed a subject. Could've gone for Marilyn again, but where's the originality in that? Nah. I dug out an old photo of my aunt. She had this fantastic sixties vibe, perfect for that pop art treatment. Strong features, you know? Good starting point.
Then, the actual work began. This is where it gets less simple than it looks. I didn’t have a fancy screen-printing setup like Andy. Who does, just lying around the house? So, I had to improvise. I sketched out the basic outline from the photo, trying to get those stark, high-contrast areas he was famous for. That meant really simplifying things, almost like making a cartoon, but still keeping the likeness. Easier said than done, believe me.
Next up: colors. This is the Warhol signature, isn't it? Those crazy, unexpected color combinations. I grabbed a bunch of cheap acrylic paints. Think shocking pinks, electric blues, sunshine yellows, lurid greens. My kitchen table looked like a paint factory exploded.
I made a few copies of my simplified sketch and just started experimenting.
- Tried a version with a bright yellow face and pink hair. Looked a bit much.
- Then a blue face with orange hair. Getting warmer.
- Finally settled on a few combinations that didn't make my eyes bleed.
The trick, I found, was not to be subtle. Warhol wasn’t subtle. It's about being bold, almost crude with the color choices. And then there's the repetition. He’d do rows of the same image in different color schemes. So, I did a couple of versions of my aunt. Same pose, different psychedelic color washes. It’s funny how doing that totally changes the feel of the image each time.
Let me tell you, it's not just about slapping paint on. You've got to think about how the colors interact. Some combinations just die, they look muddy and awful. Others pop, just like the name says. It took a lot of trial and error. And a lot of paint. My hands were stained for days. My cat even got a bit of yellow on his tail, don't ask.
The whole process, it was messy. Frustrating at times. You see these things in a gallery, all neat and tidy. You don't see the hours of messing about, the failed attempts, the "what was I thinking?" moments. I had a few of those, trust me. One version ended up looking less like pop art and more like a melted crayon monster.
In the end, I had a small series of my pop art aunt. Are they masterpieces? Definitely not. Am I going to be the next Warhol? Not a chance. But it was a good experience. Made me look at his work a bit differently. It's not as effortless as it seems. There's a definite eye, a definite process, even if it looks like something a kid could do. That's the deceptive part, I guess. And yeah, it was kinda cool to see my aunt transformed into this vibrant, slightly off-kilter icon. She'd have gotten a kick out of it, I think.
