Sketches documents the development of the Warhol pop art painting and helps the pop art artists to clear all doubts about the expression of its painting. Sketches are actually the only method to prepare the painting.

What is the difference between a ketch and a full scale Warhol pop art painting?

The sketch represents the ideas and thoughts that are quickly noted on the canvas. The paintings of the famous artists help us to better understand the expression of their artworks, and is very commonly found that the sketches are much more passionate and vivid that the artwork itself.

Besides, the sketches can be created in different ways, Leonardo De Vinci, Italian Painter, Sculptor and architect created sketches of machines that were way ahead of his time using only his imagination. John Constable and William Turner, both English artists, were painting and sketching directly from the nature. A third option   for making sketches for a photo to painting is from recollections.

On the right you’ll see sketches for the sketch painting below, we used a pencil and ink. They on is own do represent an art form.

Today in these modern times very popular art forms are unfinished sketches and photo portraits, these artistic form have finally found their place in art catalogs. In the past they were collecting dust in archives or in galleries storage rooms. The boundaries between a sketch and a finished pop art portrait are gone, and the sketch is considered as a finished and modern art form.

At the beginning, wooden boards were used to paint on, the surface of the boards was specially treated so that the paint won’t dry too fast. However this method wasn’t very efficient therefore the idea to paint on canvas was born. Canvas stretched on wooden bars gave great flexibility to this painting technique, there were few drawbacks, of course, but the idea of painting on canvas was widely accepted, not only cause the canvas was flexible but it was also much easier to move the painting around.

Artists started to experiment with paints or toned surfaces. In Fiorenze in 15^th century it was very popular to paint on a green surface. Good examples of this particular painting technique are the oil paintings of Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo.  At the same time some artists were using vibrant red and brown colors to add foundation to the surface, this specific techniques is used even today for making Warhol pop art paintings.  By adding vibrant colors artist were able to achieve an effect of deep and warm atmosphere. Popular artists that used this painting technique are Tiziano Vecellio and Dordogne, Italian painters.

At later times, impressionist painters started using canvas with white foundation which added great brightness and vividness to photo art paintings.  Till 17th century artists or more precisely their assistants were preparing their own painting materials. However it was very difficult to find an assistants as well as the number of people that started to make their own photo portraits and paintings increased, so soon enough factories started to manufacture oil paints.  Oil painting techniques becomes very popular and were frequently used to create family portraits, mainly cause oil paints and materials for painting were always available and ready to use.  Till the innovation of tube packaging Oil paints were being sold  packed in pig stomachs. The famous painter Turner for example, used to hang those bubbles on the walls and by making a small hole and applying a light pressure was able to easily squeeze the paint.

Oil painting is still very much present in today modern pop art painting techniques, it is widely used by pop art artists to create Warhol pop art portraits or Liechtenstein comic pop art paintings. The specific smell of the oil paint, the stretched canvas, as well as other panting materials motivate everyone that wants to create a pop art portrait.

Painting and sketching are actually exactly those amateur passions that anybody can learn and afford. To learn how to make a pop art painting you don’t need to own expensive equipment like you need for playing tennis. A painting can be big as a postcard or big enough to cheer up an empty wall. A person can paint or draw virtually in any place, in a restaurant, on the street or in the living room.  Of course certain painting techniques will need to be mastered, this actually sounds harder than in reality is. What distinguish a good from bad artists is actually the individual creativity and the will for hard work.  The joy we all feel cause of the esthetics in a modern pop art painting, comes deeply from our soul. The most important basic skill that each artist needs to learn is to master how to get rid from the fear that arrives  from an empty white canvas.

Since ancient times, when nobody knew how to write, people were painting and drawing on empty caves walls. The drawings were an important way of communication and thanks to those drawings we today know little something on how ancient people lived their lives. Today small children are making simple sketches long before they even learn how to speak; those simple drawings and symbols are self explanatory even in foreign language speaking countries. An artist will on other hand with a pop art painting or a sketched portrait show his own impressions or feelings. Painting and sketches from Francesco Gaye can for example clearly show the political atmosphere and life of Spanish people.

The fun of experimenting new painting techniques is also very important, since art it’s not only creative skill but also a handcraft skill, you can’t come far only with great ideas. Therefore the essence of art is in the actual hard work. Mild or harder pen pressure, energetic or soft move with the painting brush can produce various artistic effects. A single painting stroke can be very dramatic or extremely boring. It’s up to the artist to create joyful or melancholic ambient.

Along with painting and drawing there is a tight connection with the art of perspective. A rock cannot be always just a rock, in relations with its environment a rock will always have a different shape or form. The lighting and the shadows will change the appearance of the rock, if you deal a bit more with this particular rock you’ll notice that there is much more in to it than being just a simple rock. Look around you, consider the world around you, and try to relate the objects. Notice how certain colors and shadows intermix and you’ll see the beauty that is irrelevant to others. This method of seeing the environment is very significant if you want to learn how to paint.

If your first Andy Warhol pop art painting doesn’t turn out right, usually there are two reasons for your failure. The first one is lack of perception of the painting, since shallow perception produces lousy pop art painting. The second reason is the wrong selection of painting materials that makes the process of creating  photo art a very difficult one.  The selection of the proper painting materials is also connected with proper perspective, if you perceive the painting properly the materials that you need to use will be clearly evident.

All famous artists in our history, learned how to interpret the real world. Try to learn to perceive in a way that old masters did. Let’s take for example Vincent Van Gog and his famous painting form 1874. It’s about a painting of a very simple tree, that won’t look particularly special on a digital photo. But the way that Gog saw this tree is what makes it so unique. The tree gives strength to the peaceful ambient of the scene and harmony and rhythm to the oil painting. This particular tree, that to someone can be a very dull or meaningless object, for Van Gog becomes a dynamic living thing that touches the sky. To “observe” is not the same as “to see”. You’ll be amazed of things and particular specific you’ll notice when you start to paint, you may even say that you see for the first time most of the details.

Painting is the most exciting skill a man can attain. Since the ancient times when people combined pigments to emphasize particular forms, Artistic Painting techniques went through many episodes of development and gained many changes. This development helps us today to understand the feelings, the atmosphere, and even the ways of life in ancient times. Long before the photo camera was invented painters through their paintings recorded the style and the wardrobe of specific period in time, the architecture and landscapes of various areas. This enables us to look like through a window and peep in and see the past. So thought the work of the 18^th century Venetian artists we can meet Venice,  Peter Breugel left us intense landscape oil paintings of peasants life of his time, and often we have a feeling we stepped into his oil paintings and mixed with these people. Later, especially with the development of photography, artists began to distance from making landscapes canvas oil paintings

Using a Paintbrush
An old English proverb says, is not to blame the tools for a lame job. In most cases this is
true, but when it come to paintbrushes is not that simple. The quality and purity of the painting brush play an important role and the freshness and the quality of the pop art painting is highly depended on them. You can compare good a quality brush with a flower, if you neglect it soon enough you’ll throw it away.
The first “paintingbrush” was a finger or a hand, that’s  what ancient people used to apply paint to the walls of caves. Animal skin was also dipped in paint and in that way created sketched paintings. These techniques are nowadays sufficient, because there is large variety of painting supplies available on the market. Different companies offers countless types of painting brushes differing is size and quality, we recommend that you should buy few different brushes varying in size and quality

How to recognize a good quality brush? A high quality painting brush keeps its shape, if you press it must return in its original shape.
If the brush is wet, then you can better determine its quality, but this is not possible to check in the store. Natural hairs are always better than synthetics. You can get additional idea from the price; of course, very cheap brushes are not good. I would advise that you get three or four different types and sizes, which you can to try out and exercise while creating your andy warhol pop art painting.

Creating a Pop art Painting with oil paints using a paintbrush made from pig hairs.

Pig hairs  have grooves on the ends and they absorb color more efficiently. There are round and flat brushes,  we’ll talk about their usage in some of Our upcoming articles describing some other painting techniques. On the photo on left you can see: straight and circular brushes made of Pork, then a brush made form squirrel hairs, round, synthetic, and tapered brushes

For mixing oil paints a painter or pallet knife can be used. Paints in large quantities can be combined together by simply mixing them using the painting knife. The handle is bent upwards, and it allows free and relaxed manner of painting on canvas. If the handle is not bent then it can be used to remove old paint or from a pop art canvas.

You can also create a pencil sketch from photos. With photography there is always the risk in a sense that the photo art will end up looking cold. It’s a good solution to collect photos from magazines that depict animals in motion in their environment, and not to use cold shots from  photo to painting studios. Try to view the pet  animal as a whole, sketch it in rough strokes, sketch the proportions and then add the details.

Just as the human body,  the body of a horse can be also  reduced to its basic shapes. Basic shapes help the painting to become more plastic. Cylinders and spheres form a square body of the horse. When presenting the movement the basic forms will again come handy. Try everything yourself because that is the only way to get a feeling for what you draw. Like a horse, a dog also can be reduced to its basic shapes. In a comparison you can see that the back of the dog is slightly longer and thinner. This is due to the fact that the dog’s knee is just below the body. There are small, large, short and long dogs, but the basic structure is the same for all. At some dogs the bodily structure can be easily seen and sketched. This is the case with slender smooth-coated dogs. Long fur hair often covers many parts of the body. In this case, first sketch the basic structure of the hair, than paint over it.

Cats are animals that are fascinating people for a long time. They are willful, unpredictable and they move with an extreme elegance. All this needs to be seen in the pet pop art portrait. The basic shape of a cat is similar to the ones of the horses and the dogs, but the proportions are different. The head is smaller and the body is lengthier. Because of the smaller chest, the body appears nearly straight, its bottom line is almost parallel to the back line. In comparison with a pet dog, the muscles  of a domestic pet cat are much shorter. While the dog finds its prey primarily using the sense for smell, the cat hunts using it’s sight and that’s why it has larger eyes than other carnivores.

Draw relaxed and continuous lines, sketch quickly and rather discard something than to include it and end up with  pop art painting that looks solid and shriveled.

Liquid inks made in China can provide a soft satin black color effect. Solid china inks needs to be mixed with specialized pine binding liquid and pressurized in small solid pieces. To use the solid inks you’ll need to dissolve them in a small water container and apply them on the pop art canvas using soft brushes

Ink Pens. On the photo below you can see three different types of ink pens in various sizes. You can obtain them in every specialized store. A special option is an ink pen with built in brush which means that the artistic ink pen can be easily transferred into a painting brush. The steel pens that are positioned in the handle can be found in countless variations and can be utilized in many photo art techniques.  One thing to remember though, always wash the pen after utilization, the ink dries very fast therefore it will harden the pens and make them unusable.

Line pens, as the name itself states are pens for drawing straight lines with utilization of rulers.  Line pens are hard therefore the ink can be easily smudged if we make a wrong move.

Nowadays usage of pens for black & white photo sketch has become more and more popular. There are many types of ink pens available. Additional tools and materials that can be used in various ink techniques are, thin paper, paper tissues, various painting brushes, small sponges, knives, razors etc…

How can you utilize  all those paintings materials and tools to create pop art portrait find out in our upcoming articles.

“Minimalism” decorative style releases the space and creates an unstressed detailed translucence. For these reasons the “ambiental decorating” style is used mainly in holiday homes or in apartments, while in residential houses much more infrequently. However, this is not a general rule because there are individuals who have desire and ability to transform their living space and give it an ambient that is not part of their urban environment. Ambiental interior can be accompanied with the exterior. All those who want to achieve combination of an modern and moody atmosphere, have opportunity to achieve that by choosing the geometric lines of wooden made furniture. This kind of furniture will become much more evident by applying details, lighting, fabrics with typical patterns and large photo art canvases on the walls to complement the colors found in the interior.

The ambiental decor provides comfort typical for modern house arrangements. Intelligent management systems are culmination of the technological advances in our homes and they are completely independent of any stylistic expression. By using these systems while decorating, we’ll  create a fantastic blend of modern décor and technology which facilitates the housing. Combination of tradition and modern technology represent the reality in which we are living and remind us that it is a mixture of past and future, environmental values and technological progress.