How to Create Pop Art in Illustrator

Pop Art ruled in the 1960s and is still popular today. With irony and humor, Pop Art commented on contemporary society, culture and consumerism and helped blur the dividing line between "high art" and "low art." Everybody knows Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, David Hockney's California-themed paintings and Roy Lichtenstein's comic book style. The works of these artists are worth millions of dollars today, but you can create your own Pop Art masterpieces in Adobe Illustrator.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Photo
• Adobe Illustrator

Create Pop Art in Illustrator

1. Open a photograph in Illustrator. If you want to resize it, hold down the Shift key so that you don't stretch it in only one direction.

2. Zoom in and trace the hair with the pen tool. Fill the object with the darkest hair color (not the highlights). Click on "Object," then "Arrange," and "Send Backward" so it's hidden behind the photo.

3. Trace areas of the hair you want highlighted. Group all of the objects together and click "Send Backward."

4. Decide which parts of the face you will put behind the others. Ears and neck are better behind the face. The eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth and hair should be in front of the face. This saves you time and effort. You don't have to fret about edges hidden behind other features.

5. Trace the nostrils using a thin stroke.

6. Trace the mouth. Add a second line for the shadow under the bottom lip.

7. Zoom in. Create two dots in the exact position of the eyes, with the same diameter as the irises. Group them.

8. Trace the eyebrows. Copy their color. Group them.

9. Trace the face and the neck using a black outline. Add two vertical lines for the side of the neck. Put the neck behind the face with the two vertical lines in between. Group them.

10. Trace the ears. Add a black outline and a couple of thinner black lines to show some of their contours. When you're done, group all the bits for each ear, then group both ears.

11. Trace the clothes.

12. Put the parts together and create a colored rectangle as a background.

13. Fine-tune line thicknesses and colors. If you group the parts of each facial feature, it will be easier to make small adjustments.

Tips & Warnings

• To create a Pop Art image in Illustrator, look for a "face on" photo with the subject looking straight at the camera.