My Roy Lichtenstein Painting

Roy Lichtenstein is one of my favourite artists. You can tell because I painted another one of his paintings here called “Girl with Hair Ribbon“.

About Roy Lichtenstein

American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 – 1997) was born in New York City and grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He was one of most influential artists in the pop art movement. His style largely derived from comic strips, portrayed the trivialization of culture endemic in contemporary American life. Using bright, strident colors and techniques borrowed from the printing industry, he ironically incorporated mass-produced emotions and objects into highly sophisticated references to art history.

“Girl With Hair Ribbon” is a 1965 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Within Lichtenstein’s comics period, there was a period where he exclusively painted close-ups of women. In Girl, as with everything from that sub-period, the highly stylized beauty of the woman’s face makes for an overpowering pure femininity in the painting. Even though taken out of context, the image still retains some of the narrative qualities of the comic it was taken from. The woman is looking out towards the viewer, with an expression that hints at longing, pensiveness, or perhaps even fear. We the viewers are left with a tiny fragment of a story.

Reference link here.

1. Get a Gallery Style Blank Canvas
4 foot x 6 foot. Size compared to a pip-squeak.

2. Get the Artwork onto the Canvas
If you have access to a projector, get the artwork into a .jpg and project it onto the canvas and trace it lightly with a pencil. For this one, I put all his artwork into one jpg file
(estimated time = 2.5 hours)

3. Do the Black Borders
I figured I would start the easiest thing. Borders. This was a bit of a pain because it was really hard to keep all the lines straight with a fine paintbrush.
I wasn’t really happy with all the jagged lines, so I cheated a little and went over them with a metal ruler and a black sharpie.
(estimated time = 2 hours)

4. First Panel
This first panel is titled “Brushstroke”.
(estimated time = 4 hours)

Rest of the Panels
Because it was such a large canvas, I had to flip it and paint in a comfortable position.
I wasn’t too keen on standing for 4 hours. This panel is called “Drowning Girl”.
(estimated time = 4 hours)

I totally lost count on hours at this point. I was basically doing an hour here and an hour there.

Over the span of the next 6 months.

A couple of close up shots.

Am I finally done?

Tip: I say also to invest a little more and purchase a gallery stretched canvas. It really makes a world of difference when hung on your wall. You can wrap the painting over to the sides and gives it more depth and a much nicer look.