Introduction

Begin by recapping the last lesson. Ask the class:

• What did we create?
• Which artist’s style were we replicating?
• What is pop art?
• We used the website Pixlr, can you remember any of the tools and techniques we used to create our image? 

 

Your own pop art

The famous pop artists of the past all had their own preferred style and themes, but they had big colours and experimentation in common. There were no rules, pop art is for anyone and everyone.

 

 

In this lesson the children will get to experiment and try out a range of photo editing tools to create their own unique piece of pop art. The only key things to remember are big, bold colours and creativity!

 

Choose your subject

We'll start with an image of a person. Your class could use pictures of themselves or save an image of someone famous. Don't forget to use the Creative Commons filter in Google Images when searching for images.

 

 

Ask the class to go back to pixlr.com, choose Create new, then set the page to 900 x 900 pixels.

 

Go Layer > Add image as layer. Zoom out (if needed) and resize the image to fit your canvas.

 

Remove the background

Remove the background with the lasso tool. Be sure to select the polygon lasso and carefully click around the edges of the person's face. Setting Feather to 2 will give a smoother finish. As you reach your starting point, double-click to complete the selection. Then go to Select > Invert Selection so the background of the image is selected instead. then press the delete key to remove it. Go back to the Select menu and choose Deselect to cancel the lasso tool selection.

 

 

Next, take some time to tidy up any rough edges. Use the zoom tool to get in close and pan right around the edges of your person. Look out for any pointy corners or small bits of background colour that were missed by the lasso tool.

 

 

Use a small round eraser (size 10) to tidy up the edges. Navigate around the image by dragging the red rectangle in the Navigate window.

 

 

 

 

Colour your background

As colour is such a big part of pop art, let's put some back in to our image. You can use the regular fill tool to add a single block of colour for your background, or try out a colour gradient (fade effect).

 

 

Choose any of the pre-set gradients or make your own.

1. Click the coloured markers and then change the colour.
2. Drag the markers around to alter the gradient.
3. Add more colours by hovering below the gradient bar until you see a + sign. Click to add a new colour marker.

 

 

When you have the colours to your liking, click on the background and drag a line to add your gradient. Experiment with where you click and how far you drag the line. 

Linear will fade in a straight line, in whichever direction you drag your line.

Radial will fade outwards in a circular way from wherever you click.

 

 

In the layers box, click the eye icon to hide your person layer while you experiment with the gradient.

 

 

 

Click the eye again to show the person layer and check you are happy with the effect of your gradient.

 

 

Adding extra colour

You may wish to add more or adjust the colours to your image, perhaps to give hair a tint or the effect of some makeup. You can match colours to your background to help tie the image together. Do this with the brush tool, but use a small brush, reduce the opacity to between 10 and 15% and zoom in to do it really carefully, otherwise it can look harsh and messy. Having a low opacity means you can still see the image behind the colour.

 

 

Time to experiment

Now it's time for the class to really start to personalise their art work. There are a huge number of filters and adjustments that you can use to alter images in Pixlr and other similar programs like Photoshop.

Encourage the class to experiment and try them out. If they don't like it they can just cancel the effect and try something else, or if they add it and change their mind, simply Undo the effect by pressing Ctrl+Z or going to Edit > Undo.

Here's a range of examples, but it by no means covers everything. Some are found in the Adjustments menu, others are in the Filters menu.

 

Adjustment > Posterize 

This reduces the number of colours or tones in an image. It replaces smooth, gradients with flat, areas of uniform colour or shading, creating a graphic effect similar to a vintage screen-printing.

 

 

 

Adjustment > Hue and saturation

We used this in the last project. It allows you to alter the colours in the image (Hue), or increase or decrease the amount of colour in the image (saturation).

 

Filter > Outer glow

This adds a coloured outline of your choice. Repeat for more than one coloured outline. Change the thickness with the size slider and smooth and blur them with the Feather and Opacity sliders.

 

 

Filter > Halftone

This breaks the image down into a pattern of dots or shapes. When viewed from a distance, the optical illusion tricks the eye into seeing smooth tones. This gives a comic book effect and was a common pop art technique, most famously used by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.

 

 

Filter > Creative > Reflect 

This allows you to add reflection effects in many directions by changing the Type. Use the sliders to change the effect.

 

 

Filter > Creative > Kaleidoscope

This uses reflection and symmetry to create unusual effects that mimic looking down a kaleidoscope. Use the sliders to change the effect.

 

 

Filter > Glitches > Interference  

This adds a zig-zag blurred effect to your image to mimic an screen image getting signal interference. 

 

 

Filter > Effect library

A range of filters and effects. Each section has sub-options, many to choose from.

 

Duplicate, Rotate, Blur and Smudge

These are not filters, but other options for transforming your image. You can duplicate the image and change the size and position on the page. The arrange tool gives you options for rotating and flipping the image at the top of the screen.

 

   

 

The blur tool can be used to blend and get rid of harsh edges and the smudge tool lets you drag colours or parts of an image together. Both work better with one of the softer brushes and its important to get used to using the strength slider well. Depending on the effect you are trying to achieve, you will want to increase or decrease the strength.

   

 

 

Don't stop at one

When you are happy with a creation you can save it, but then try something different! Encourage the class to create multiple versions of their work.

Each time they save, they can use Undo (Ctrl+Z) to take off some of the effects they have added, before trying something else. There are so many possibilities!

 

 

Save your work

When saving your image to your computer. Click on File > Save. Choose PNG and give the file a new appropriate name before clicking DOWNLOAD. 

This will save the image to the default download location on your computer. This is usually the Downloads folder. Some schools don’t allow students access to that folder, so if you need to save it to a different location, click DOWNLOAD and then right-click the link provided and choose save link as. Then browse to where you would like to save it.

 

 

If you need to save an unfinished piece of work to come back to at another time, when saving change the file format to PXD which will maintain the layers in the file, the others will force the image to be flattened which will be a problem if you still need to work on separate layers. 

 

 

Plenary 

Ask the class to find a partner and have a look at their own as well as someone else’s work and discuss:

• What do you like about your/their work? 
• Could you/they have improved anything? 
• What was the hardest part? Why? 
• What editing skills would you still like to work on?