Andy Warhol / Drawing with Ellipses

Mini Biography
Andy Warhol was born August 6, 1928 in Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of four children. His parents were immigrants from Slovakia. His dad worked in a coalmine until he died in an accident when Warhol was 13.
Warhol was very sick as a child and spent a lot of time in bed drawing and collecting pictures of movie stars. He went to college for art and then got a job in New York City illustrating (creating images to tell a story) for magazines, advertising companies, and album covers. He created the famous banana on the Velvet Underground album.
In the 1960s Warhol started making painting of everyday images you saw everywhere in popular culture. This type of artwork is called “Pop Art” (because of POPular images). He created images of people in the news at that time such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. He also made images of products like Campbell’s Soup Cans and Coca-Cola Bottles. He made his work in a warehouse he called “The Factory” which was often visited by other artists, musicians, and celebrities. In 1968, one of members of “The Factory” shot Warhol. He survived after major surgery.
He did a lot of silk screen during this time which is the print making process where you can make several images of the exact same thing through a screen. Lots of t-shirts are made this way. Warhol also liked to make art movies.
Warhol was private about his faith, but we know that he went to Catholic Church almost everyday and helped in the soup kitchen often. He was also very secret about his relationships.
He died in 1987 after gallbladder surgery.


Tie In to Project
Warhol was very good at drawing images he saw. This is called still life drawing. Soup cans were favorite subject matters of his. To draw a soup can angled he had to draw what is called ellipses. The top of a can is a circle but when you see at it at an angle it becomes an ellipses (longer one direction than another) this shows depth.

Demonstration
Look at the top of a soup can. Draw the circle on the board. Then look at the bottom and draw the circle a little below that circle. Look at the front and draw the rectangle between them. This looks more like “cubist” version of a soup can. Now draw the soup can as described in the project.

Project
Draw a still life of a soup can.

Easy- Give each student a cut out of an oval. Have them trace the oval. Then trace the oval again about 6 inches lower. Either erase or do not draw the upper part of the oval on the bottom. With a ruler connect the sides of the oval to form a can. Decorate as you wish.

Medium- Measuring and draw x2 bigger. Have the students look at soup can and measure the width. Approx 3 inches. Multiply x2. Have them measure 6 inches across and lightly draw lines for the side of the can 6 inches apart. On the top draw an oval that touches the 6 inch sides. Measure the height of the oval. Make the same oval on the bottom, erasing the top part or not drawing it. Draw the can’s designs using shapes but no letters or do a fantasy soup.

Hard- If students have already been taught how to use a pencil to measure by sight have them each draw a can from life. Lightly sketch ellipses all the way down the can in order to help the can’s design look like they are wrapping around the can, rather than flat. Use shadow and highlight if time allows.


Materials
Soup cans or Cutout Ellipses
Paper
Pencil
Ruler

Variations
This is a great project to do on the computer with a program such as InDesign. Follow a variation of the medium level instructions. Use copy and paste for ellipses.