Pop Art Lips | Posted: Nov. 10, 2016, 5:49 p.m.

Media: Markers and liquid whiteout on foam board

Time: ~5.5 hours

This piece is probably my favorite piece, in terms of creation. Marker on paper tends to produce a heavy effect; marker on foamboard, however, has a much lighter effect. As a result, layering with marker on foamboard produces beautiful and realistic results. The liquid whiteout adds to the effect of layering, and gives the piece more texture.

Here's a funny story regarding this piece: I remember working on this piece back in November 2012 during one of my free periods in high school. My favorite teacher came up to me and asked if I was taking out all my frustration on this piece. He wondered if my school had driven me so insane that I was starting to create strange art. I laughed and told him I had to create a pop art inspired piece for my art class.

When I think of pop art, I immediately picture Roy Lichtenstein's work. To find inspiration for this piece, I browsed images upon images of his work. The hair and lips on his characters always popped -- pun intended -- out. Drawing a collage of hair would be time-consuming, and I'd likely have to draw an entire face to establish the context. However, lips could immediately be recognized, no greater context needed.

I didn't want to draw the lips in Lichtenstein's style -- I wanted the lips to be more contemporary. Because pop art often serves as a parody of popular culture, I think it propagates popular culture. The idea behind this piece was to propagate YouTube makeup tutorials, which were becoming quite popular at the time. I didn't mean for the piece to be a parody but rather a representation of those tutorials.