August 6th would have been Andy Warhol’s 85th birthday and why not celebrate his birthday by learning about the pop art movement. I began the program by teaching the kids about the pop art movement, followed by reading “Uncle Andy’s” by James Warhola, then we recreated some pop art!

Lesson

Andy Warhol is the first modern art superstar. He is known for his simple, but strong and colourful art. He created “Pop Art.” The word “pop” means popular. He focused his art on supermarket products, rock stars, and models. He loved to make pictures of people and things everyone could recognize, whether it was a dollar bill, Elvis Presley, or a can of the Campbell’s soup he ate for lunch everyday.

Andy would take images from pop culture and reproduce them. Not everyone was happy with Andy’s work because they thought it wasn’t original. They thought he was stealing from other artists and he got into a bit of trouble. He got sued by a few people – but he settled by giving royalties to the original artists.

Literacy

Uncle Andy’s by James Warhola describes his visit with his uncle, Andy Warhol, New York City .

Project

I asked the kids if Andy Warhol was alive today, what sorts of portraits would be paint? The kids said Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and One Direction. I made templates and photocopied them on watercoloured paper so the kids could paint and colour just like Andy would do.

I chose “modern” images such as minions, Mickey and Minny Mouse, Angry Birds logo, Star Wars, and even Woody from Toy Story. Here’s what some of the kids reproduced: