Learning about pop art at home

One of the attractions I’d originally planned to visit this spring was the Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern. To make up for the experience, we planned a pop art workshop at home instead.

Here’s our pop art schedule for today:

Discovering pop art
For background information, we looked at Art: A Children’s Encyclopedia (DK, £16.99), focusing on the 1950s and 60s. I’d pulled out an old art book from when I did art history in school, and I’d also found the relevant sections in our children’s art books. Next we watched ‘What is pop art?’ presented by Tate Kids.

Learning about Roy Lichtenstein and doing colouring
The children’s art book series Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists include books on several artists from this period in art history, and we have the Roy Lichtenstein one, which provides a great introduction to the artist known for his comic-inspired work. While listening to the story, the children will be colouring in. Just Color has an Art section with a range of free colour-in sheets inspired by works from artists like Lichtenstein.

Learning about Andy Warhol and creating self-portraits
The highlight and goal of today was following Tate Kids’ Make Pop Art Like Warhol activity, and to get started we watched the 6-minute BBC video on Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn Diptych’ and we also read parts of the section on Room 3 in the Tate Modern exhibition. To Make Pop Art Like Warhol with Tate Kids, I had taken photos of the children and printed out 6 copies of each photo in black and white. They could then follow the Tate Kids instructions, choosing two colours for colouring each of their photos and sticking them all next to each other to create a selfie artwork like Warhol. If we have more time another day, we’ll also design a soup can.

And as soon as life returns to normal we will head to London’s Tate Modern to learn more!

Tags: Art, Art exhibition, Art projects, Arts and crafts, DK, Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein, Tate Modern