The students learned about the artist named Roy Lichtenstein, a painter who was working in the United States in the 1960′s. Lichtenstein noticed the prevalence of advertising in our culture and began painting portraits of the people he found in advertisements. He was part of a group of artists from the Pop Art (or popular art) movement.

The students chose magazine advertisements of people and drew them large scale. They learned about proportion and how to draw the face from observation. The students then outlined their portraits in marker and filled in the white space with the unusual “Benday dot pattern,” which mimicked early print and tv advertisements. Making the dots was a fun process, whereby the students colored on bubble wrap and printed them onto their drawing.

This lesson incorporated lessons from art history, drawing the figure and printmaking. The students seemed to enjoy the process and were proud of what they accomplished.

Author: Ms. Molly Cranch
Photographer: Ms. Molly Cranch