LESSON MODULE on the 50s, 60s & 70s
By Nicholas Dollak
Dr. Jack Pesda
History of the 50s, 60s & 70s
April 16, 2001
ART: THE PSYCHEDELIC ’60s
Purpose: To turn students on to creating “psychedelic” art in the style of 1960s and 1970s pop art. In the process, they’ll become familiar with various personalities of the time.
Grade level: Middle school (or high school, or really gifted elementary school).
Materials needed: Computers with Adobe Photoshop, hooked up to a color printer, may be necessary for some effects. (However, since those fancy modern gadgets didn’t exist back in the ’60s, there are ways to get around using them that will be the true test of creativity!) Students will receive the following handouts, as well as white, black and colored paper (including a rainbow of “neon” colors!), pencil, scissors and glue. They’ll also need copies of photographs of various 1960s personalities. I’ll have some on hand, but they may search the library or Internet for pictures they can use. (Of course, I’ll remind them to never cut or tear a page from a book! Photocopy what you need, and use the copy for your purposes, please, students.) Students who don’t wish to use pictures of 1960s folks may use pictures of others – even themselves! I’m not too fussy, and I’m sure they’ll pick up something historical just from participating in class. They should use pictures of people’s faces, though, since those are usually most recognizable after undergoing the treatment we’ll be giving them.
Assignment: One psychedelic portrait. They’ll learn about various visual effects used in psychedelic art, and produce their own psychedelic portrait of either a 1960s personality or another person.
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What’s the first thing that pops into your heads when you see those words, especially when rendered in those computer fonts? It’s probably “Hey, that’s from the ’60s or ’70s.”
What were the Sixties? What were the Seventies? And why were they so… well… freaky and wild?
The cultural phenomena commonly referred to as “the Sixties” and “the Seventies” roughly spans the time periods 1964 – 1969 and 1970 – 1979. It starts with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, and includes such historical events as the assassination of his brother Robert a year later, the Vietnam War, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968, the landing of a human being on the Moon in 1969, and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. Oh, yeah… there was also a little something called Woodstock in 1969, too.
The Sixties was a turbulent era. The Civil Rights Movement was underway, and for every peaceful demonstration there were several unfortunate riots, not to mention people who did not feel that Civil Rights was a change for the better. (The Civil Rights Movement, most visibly led by Dr. Martin Luther King, was an attempt to make racial discrimination illegal, so that Blacks – and by extension people of all races and genders – could get jobs and decent homes without fear of having it all taken away. It has largely attained its goal – after all, you now attend school with people of many colors, which wouldn’t have happened before the Movement – but it still continues today. Nowadays, though, it is mostly concerned with individual cases of discrimination.)
The Vietnam War ran from about 1963 to 1975 (I say “about” because it can trace its roots back to the 1940s, and Americans were involved from 1963 to 1973). I won’t go into detail about it, because although wars in general are confusing and messy affairs, the Vietnam conflict probably takes the prize as the most confusing and messy of all. However, it soon became apparent to Americans that nobody really knew why American soldiers were involved in Vietnam. Few people really thought that the war had anything to do with America’s safety, and even fewer were willing to risk their lives fighting total strangers who had never threatened them. So the anti-war movement began. Many people of draft age (18 years old or so), especially those in college, protested the war. Some such protests, ironically enough, turned violent and resulted in armed police and soldiers entering college campuses to disperse, arrest or even attack protesters.
Yes, those were certainly turbulent times!
Music got stranger and stranger, as musicians like Jimi Hendrix experimented with all the weird sounds an electric guitar could possibly make (his rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Woodstock music festival is probably his best-known work), and the Beatles took rock ’n’ roll to unusual heights that sometimes crossed the line into the realm of “serious” (neo-classical) music.
The art world was affected by this turmoil as well. The Pop Art and Op Art movements came along. They didn’t last long as art movements, but they produced some patterns and concepts we still see today.
Pop Art is art based, not so much on things we see every day, but on images we see every day. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist are best known for Pop Art. They would take everyday images – soup cans, magazine photos, comic book panels, billboards – and present them to us out-of-context, blown up to large scale, or with extra-loud colors. Suddenly, a picture of a soup can no longer is an advertisement for soup, but a comment on how familiar we are with the label. A comic-book panel now tells an entire story – usually more about us the viewer than about a character in the comic. The billboard, instead of advertising, makes us afraid of what our over-purchasing is doing to the world and to our very souls.
Andy Warhol, Do It Yourself – Seascape; Green Coca-Cola Bottles; Marilyn Monroe Diptych; Campbells Soup Cans (all 1962). The Marilyn Monroe picture is actually in bright, jarring colors.
Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl (1963); As I Opened Fire (1964); M-Maybe (1965); Eddie Diptych (1962). These pictures are huge; Drowning Girl is over 67x66”. Lichtenstein colored them by painting tiny, evenly-spaced dots, just as the colors are printed in actual comic books and newspapers – only his dots are a bit larger! Later in his career he switched to large, ready-made Ben-Day dots, to make life easier.
James Rosenquist, F-111 (1965); Claes Oldenburg, Giant Toothpaste Tube (1964); Gerald Scarfe, T.V. Commercials (1968)
Op Art is based more on patterns, colors and shapes than in conveying messages. It is totally abstract, and often creates the illusion of depth or movement. If you look at it too long, it can make you feel a little queasy!
Ellsworth Kelly, Red Blue Green (1963) Bridget Riley, Fall (1963) Kenneth Noland, Bend Sinister (1964)
These art styles all feature stark patterns and bright, solid colors. Now, Pop Art and Op Art didn’t just spring forth from nothing as soon as the Sixties began. Check the dates on some of the pictures, and you’ll see that some of them were created before Kennedy’s assassination (often thought of as the official “start” of the Sixties). In fact, the origins of these art forms can be traced very far back. Marcel Duchamp made early Pop Art out of found objects and pictures of paintings in the years following World War I. Of course, you all know of Picasso and “Cubism,” which date from the 1920s. Picasso’s work influenced a young Dutch painter named Piet Mondrian, who was painting as though the camera had not been invented – until he saw Picasso’s work, and decided to reduce his paintings to pure color, pattern and form, with no attempt to duplicate scenes the eye can see. His work was done mostly in the 1940s.
Piet Mondrian, Victory Boogie-Woogie (1943-44)
This sort of painting would inspire artists generations later. We still see patterns sort of like this on ladies’ clothing today.
The use of garish colors goes back even earlier. One of the first to use bright colors in a way typical of the Sixties and Seventies was the French painter Henri Matisse, whose portrait of his wife made turn-of-the-century critics laugh out loud.
Henri Matisse, Portrait of Mme Matisse With a Green Stripe (1905)
Since I’m a little color-blind, I don’t see what all the fuss was about. But it caused quite a stir in 1905, and some people even today find it hideously ugly. Well, there’s no accounting for taste, or lack of it thereof. In the Sixties, however, “Psychedelic” artists deliberately used unusual colors in just this sort of way, for the same reason Matisse did: they liked the way it looked. Let’s take a peek at the work of a contemporary of Matisse’s, Gustav Klimt:
Gustav Klimt, Judith 1 (1901); Portrait of Emilie Flöge (1902)
His use of apparently flat, heavily decorative surfaces in his paintings were considered revolutionary. His colors were pleasing enough to the eye that he didn’t cause much commotion; but during World War II, Germany’s nazi government decided that Klimt’s work was so distasteful that it ordered it destroyed. Fortunately, by then all but three of his pictures, panels that could not be moved, had been relocated to Allied countries. His bright, decorative paintings, mostly of slender, glamorous women in fancy dress, were “rediscovered” in the Sixties and Seventies, and still have a boldly contemporary look to them. Personally, they remind me of some of my mother’s tall friends from when I was a kid! Yes, anyone who was fashionable dressed like that.
Klimt was probably the first to paint in a “proto-psychedelic” style and make it acceptable. But others had experimented with such “oddities” before – only to vanish into obscurity. The following two pictures are genuine rarities, even in this day and age.
Richard Dadd, Portrait of a Young Man (1853); Hildegard of Bingen, Sophia: Mother Wisdom, Mother Church (12th Century)
Richard Dadd was a talented artist, but unfortunately suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. This mental illness did not help his career. However, some of it managed to work its way into his paintings, which are very strange-looking indeed. Alas, his work is difficult to find, and as far as I know, has never been collected and photographed for a book about him. This portrait, of an intense-looking but unknown young fellow, is supposedly painted in bright, vibrant colors – and looks like it was painted in the 1970s rather than the 1850s. Hopefully someone will compile a decent color volume of Dadd’s work – his “discovery” is long overdue. The other picture, which also looks very 70s, is about 800 years old, and its creator was a Benedictine nun named Hildegard, Abbess of a monastery near the small German town of Bingen. Hildegard became famous in her day and for centuries afterward as a spiritual leader, philosopher, social reformer, writer, artist and composer. Only now, though, has her work become available to the public – and she seems to have been way ahead of her time. She stood up for human rights, including those of women, at a time when no leader really cared or even knew of such things. Her music contains intervals and harmonies no other composer would dare try for another 400 years. And her illuminations (pictures) range in style from somewhat traditional Celtic to Aztec (Remember, this was the 1100s; no European would know anything about Aztecs until 1520) to the above style. Oh, yeah – she is also perhaps one of the most famous migraine sufferers in history. Some theorize that the colors and patterns in her work might have been based on “flashes” she “saw” while experiencing particularly violent attacks of this horrible variety of headache.
Portraiture took on unusual forms in the Sixties. Here’s a self-portrait by Marisol Escobar that is both a flat picture and a life-size sculpture.
Marisol Escobar, The Party (Detail of Marisol) (1965-66)
Now, many of you are probably under the impression that Psychedelic art was all drug-induced. You’ve all seen television shows and movies that ridicule that time period, and there’s always some sort of illegal drug thing going on. Well… I’m sorry to say it, but, yeah, there was a lot of drug abuse going on. There still is today, in fact – most of which you probably are unaware. One of the drugs that became popular in the Sixties and Seventies was LSD, or “acid.” We now know that it destroys so many brain cells that only a few “hits” of it can make a person clinically psychotic; a few more can make him or her criminally insane. Back then, though, a number of people mistakenly thought of it as a harmless form of relaxation. (Personally, I think I’d prefer a good night’s sleep, myself!) One of the effects of the drug is the inability to see one’s surroundings properly: some parts of the field of vision appear to grow, others to shrink, and the colors are very strange. A swirling, boiling pattern appears, as if everything were moving and breathing. Acid-trippers would most certainly have been responsible for a great many car accidents – if they hadn’t sold their cars to buy drugs. Just say NO, kids. Drugs really aren’t worth it.
If you’re really curious to see how this sort of thing looks, there is a nifty little printed pattern that can do the trick with absolutely no side effects other than a minute or two of disorientation (and a feeling of lightheadedness if you’re prone to migraines). The pattern is on the next sheet. Cut out the disk, punch a hole in the center and “play” it on a record player (stone-age CD player). If you stare at it for a minute while it spins at the usual LP speed, you’ll get the impression that the outer and inner rings of the disk are spinning away from you, while the second ring is spinning toward you! Pretty wild, you say? Now, after a minute of this, look away at your surroundings. Everything will appear to alternately shrink and grow, spiraling slightly in the process. Fluffy clouds in a blue sky are great to look at while under the influence of this fun toy. Don’t try operating heavy machinery, driving a car or even riding a bike for a few minutes, though, because you can’t really see straight.
If you can’t find a record player, you can try mounting the disk on cardboard, poking a pin through the center into the eraser end of a pencil, and spinning it clockwise at a steady speed (roughly one rotation every two seconds). If that fails, you can still get a good idea of what this effect is like by watching the climactic scene in Jeunet & Caro’s film The City of Lost Children, in which the little girl captures the old scientist and becomes old while he turns into a baby. Computer-generated effects bend and twist the entire scene in a very distorting way.
CAUTION: This film is rated “R.” You may sneer at that, say “So what?” – but it’s still a Federal offense to allow minors to view such material without adult supervision. If you’re under the age of 17, you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian in order to view this. Why is it rated “R?” Probably mostly because it’s very creepy stuff. There are some scenes of violence, neglect and abuse of children, and some profanity. No nudity, though.
Lava lamps provide a similar sensation of swirling, continuous movement. So does dripping colored fluids into liquids of different density. These swirling, busy patterns were popular in the Victorian Era (marbleized paper), and became popular again in the Sixties and Seventies. Lava lamps were filmed and projected onto large screens to jazz up the Control Center in the Sixties’ television series The Prisoner. In 1968, director Stanley Kubrick used close-ups of colored fluids in addition to kaleidoscope-style patterns and false-color photography to create the spectacular grand tour of the universe at the end of his film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Beyond the infinite: entering the Stargate and flying over a false-color alien world in 2001: A Space Odyssey. False-color photography came into its own in the Sixties and Seventies.
Along with ladies’ hairstyles, clothes and social standing, airport terminal design (here on a space station) in 2001 remains firmly rooted in the Sixties. Note the bright red, blobby furniture. Otherwise, the film has held up quite well, and remains one of the most innovative, intelligent visions of the near-future. Incidentally, this picture, although not kid stuff by any means, is rated “G.” Come one, come all!
False-color photography is a technique by which certain colors are replaced by others, often to startling effect. NASA uses it almost all the time to enhance its photographs of celestial bodies; without it, Jupiter would appear a dull cream color, and its bands of clouds would be barely visible. Back in the Sixties, special film had to be used for this, and there were several complicated procedures for generating different color schemes. It was such a tricky process that the shots were usually done with ordinary film, and the false-color experiment done using a copy of the original film. The director would use the false-color shot he or she liked best. In the Seventies, simple computers were developed that could create false colors on videotape. These machines, called “video equalizers,” are still in use today. The Adobe Photoshop program we’ll be using for this assignment is also capable of false-color effects.
Two other photography techniques developed in the Sixties and Seventies were Kirlian photography and infrared photography. Kirlian photographs are made by placing objects directly onto film (Polaroid film is perfect for this) in a pitch-black room and passing a jolt of high-voltage, low-wattage current through both the film and the object. The results? Weird pictures of colored haloes of light. Many people believed – and many still do – that these are photographs of auras, mysterious energy fields that permeate and surround all living things. The fact that even a coin or a stone will generate an aura in a Kirlian photograph did not cast any doubt in the minds of those who believed; instead, many of them expanded their definition of “alive” to include everything. A friend of mine in high school once wrote “ROCKS LIVE” on her binder – a phrase that pretty much sums it up. It’s that line of thinking that gave rise to the “Pet Rock” craze of 1976. In about six months, a California-based company sold nearly 1.5 million Pet Rocks – a small rock in a box with care & feeding instructions.
Not that I doubt that rocks live. They probably do, by some definition. However, no scientist has yet conclusively explained exactly what we’re looking at in a Kirlian photograph.
Montage of Kirlian photographs. Here’s another wild tidbit: such photographs were taken of leaves, which of course made leaf-shaped auras. If a piece was torn off of a leaf and the leaf quickly photographed in this way, the missing piece, with all of its ridges and detail, appeared as part of the aura – with a colorful bulge in the surrounding aura.
Infrared photography, which I don’t have a sample of, used special film that was sensitive to infrared, the invisible color of heat. Still photographs and color movies were made of carefully-lit subjects doing various activities, with swirling heat patterns emanating from their bodies and from any hot object in the picture. Exhaled breath looked like steam or smoke. A blow-dryer looked like it was belching flame. We’ve all seen the images produced by night-vision cameras and goggles (which are also sensitive to infrared); but those are rarely in color and never as carefully-composed as the experimental infrared films of the Seventies.
These strange new photographs had a definite effect on popular artistic styles. Rock stars began to decorate their album covers with colorful swirls and strangely altered photographs; their clothes became fashion statements as loud as the music they played. Ultimately, the rock stars themselves became the subject of psychedelic art, and portraiture achieved a hallucinogenic quality not seen since Klimt, Matisse and Dadd.
Ladies and Gentlemen… The Beatles. As they appeared in person…
… and transmogrified through false-color photography and stylized animation. The image on the right is from Yellow Submarine (1968). The entire movie is characteristic of the Psychedelic Movement!
Jimi Hendrix. I could not find any truly psychedelic picture of him, but this one comes close.
And good ol’ Bob Dylan. The picture at right is by Milton Glaser (1967).
Rock star or just a dude screaming into a microphone? I found no further explanation for this 1969 photograph by Charles Moore entitled Youth. On the right, an anonymous, undated psychedelic poster of the Mad Tea Party from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Very Seventies.
(Beginner Students)
ASSIGNMENT:
PSYCHEDELIC PORTRAIT
WHAT YOU’LL NEED: A photograph of a person, preferably a recognizable face from the Sixties or Seventies (Rock stars from the time are ideal; political figures would be interesting, too). If you wish, however, you may use a photograph of yourself! Remember, big hair was in at the time; so if you have a flat-top or spiked hair, you might want to change your hairstyle in the final product.
The rest of the materials are in the classroom (computer w/ Adobe Photo Deluxe, scanner, color printer, tracing vellum, pencils, light-table, construction paper – including “neon” colors, scissors, markers, glue or paste)
STEP 1: Scan your photograph into the computer. If you don’t know how to do this, I’ll show everyone and write the steps on the board. Save the image as PsychPort(your name) in the “Classwork” folder.
STEP 2: Don’t concern yourself with this. During a break period, I’ll expand the size of your scanned pictures so they’re almost 8.5x11”. We’ll need to print them as large as possible.
STEP 3: Open Adobe Photo Deluxe on the computer. Click on “Get Photo” and bring in your picture from the “Classwork” folder.
STEP 4: Play around with the various special effects until you get something you like. Ask me to look at it before you print it out. When I tell you it’s beautiful, you may print it out. Please consult the “Special Effects” sheet I’ve attached to the document clip on the computer, so you’ll know which effects are appropriately psychedelic and characteristic of the time period!
I know that art should not be rushed, but please try to spend no more than five minutes on the computer. Students who are waiting to use the computer may finish up their previous art project, work on their own things, or watch Yellow Submarine, which I’ll bring in to inspire & entertain you. Try to keep the noise level down, though, so those on the computer can work with as little distraction as possible.
STEP 5: When you’ve printed out your picture, bring it to your table and tape it to a piece of tracing vellum. Carefully trace the picture onto the tracing vellum. Don’t worry about color and shading – just concentrate on outlining the different areas of color. I find that the best results happen if you turn the picture upside-down, so that the shapes you’re tracing don’t look so much like what they represent. After all, it should look a little abstract when you’re done. If you have trouble seeing through the tracing vellum, you may use the light-table. Be sure that I’ve seen your tracing BEFORE you detach the printout from the tracing vellum.
STEP 6: When I’ve given you the go-ahead, detach your printout. Please put it in your folder, since you might need it later. Now, you must make another decision. If your picture looks good in reverse (in mirror image), you can save time and go directly to STEP 7. Otherwise, continue with this step. Take your tracing, turn it over and trace over those same lines, so you have a tracing on both sides of the vellum.
STEP 7: Tape ONE EDGE of your tracing onto a sheet of white paper. Again, trace over your lines. This will cause the lines on the other side to transfer to the white paper, leaving a ghostly copy of your tracing on good paper! Be sure to lift the vellum up from time to time to make sure you got everything. When you have transferred the whole picture, you may remove the vellum and discard it if you wish.
STEP 8: Using markers, color yourself in, one section at a time. Do not try to draw the details of your face as you ordinarily would; treat your portrait as if it were no more than a bunch of colored blobs that happen to look like you in this arrangement. Again, you might do best if you turn the picture upside-down, so that it looks more abstract; this way, you’ll concentrate more on the shapes than on the features of the face. BE SURE TO USE BRIGHT, CONTRASTING COLORS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR ACTUAL SKIN COLOR! You may use your computer printout as a guide, or you may make up your own colors.
If you use black, save it for last. Be sure to decide if black would actually help or ruin your picture, because it’s not always a good color to use.
STEP 9: The background. If you decide to color the background in, make sure the colors and values contrast sharply with your portrait colors, so that you stand out. Sun-rays and swirls are good. You could even make it look like you’re in the Sea of Holes – be sure to draw your holes lightly in pencil before using black marker, to make sure they’re where you want them. You may also carefully cut yourself out and paste your picture down on a sheet of construction paper – any color you wish.
Have fun, and Peace Out!
Left to right: original photograph; altered version using “neon glow” effect; outline on tracing vellum.
Example: Here’s a photo of President Richard M. Nixon, along with a general idea of how to start out. (What’s funny about this is that Nixon was as far from the Psychedelic Movement as one can get!) Nixon became President in 1968, and consequently was in office when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the Moon in 1969. He was re-elected in 1972, but was forced to resign in 1974 because of his involvement in what came to be known as the “Watergate Scandal.” It turned out that his re-election committee, with his knowledge, had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (located in Washington’s Watergate Hotel) during the 1972 campaign. He wasn’t the first president to make a really bad decision, and he certainly wasn’t the last. But he nearly got impeached for it, and unfortunately many people remember him to this day for the Watergate Scandal.
There was much more to “Tricky Dick” Nixon than scandal, however. Though he was not very likeable as a public figure, and preferred to keep to himself, he was quite intelligent, had a decent family life, and was such an insightful politician that every president from then on would call on him for advice, up until his death on April 22, 1994.
While in office, he passed legislation that enabled the Civil Rights Movement to reach its goals. He passed legislation that granted Native American tribes the right to self-government. He withdrew U.S. troops from Vietnam, ending American involvement in that messy war. He traveled to China and the USSR and helped normalize U.S. relations with those two countries. His Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, helped set up peace negotiations between Israel and its opponents Egypt and Syria.
He was a very private man outside of politics, and little was made known about his personal life until his later years. Among his more interesting talents: he could play about 13 musical instruments!
(Advanced Students)
ASSIGNMENT:
PSYCHEDELIC PORTRAIT
WHAT YOU’LL NEED: A photograph of a person, preferably a recognizable face from the Sixties or Seventies (Rock stars from the time are ideal; political figures would be interesting, too). If you wish, however, you may use a photograph of yourself! Remember, big hair was in at the time; so if you have a flat-top or spiked hair, you might want to change your hairstyle in the final product.
The rest of the materials are in the classroom (computer w/ Adobe Photo Deluxe, scanner, color printer, tracing vellum, light-table, construction paper – including “neon” colors, scissors, markers, glue or paste)
STEP 1: Scan your photograph into the computer. If you don’t know how to do this, I’ll show everyone and write the steps on the board. Save the image as PsychPort(your name) in the “Classwork” folder.
STEP 2: Don’t concern yourself with this. During a break period, I’ll expand the size of your scanned pictures so they’re almost 8.5x11”. We’ll need to print them as large as possible.
STEP 3: Open Adobe Photo Deluxe on the computer. Click on “Get Photo” and bring in your picture from the “Classwork” folder.
STEP 4: Play around with the various special effects until you get something you like. Ask me to look at it before you print it out. When I tell you it’s beautiful, you may print it out. Please consult the “Special Effects” sheet I’ve attached to the document clip on the computer, so you’ll know which effects are appropriately psychedelic and characteristic of the time period!
I know that art should not be rushed, but please try to spend no more than five minutes on the computer. Students who are waiting to use the computer may finish up their previous art project, work on their own things, or watch Yellow Submarine, which I’ll bring in to inspire & entertain you. Try to keep the noise level down, though, so those on the computer can work with as little distraction as possible.
STEP 5: When you’ve printed out your picture, bring it to your table and tape it to a piece of tracing vellum. Carefully trace the picture onto the tracing vellum. Don’t worry about color and shading – just concentrate on outlining the different areas of color. I find that the best results happen if you turn the picture upside-down, so that the shapes you’re tracing don’t look so much like what they represent. After all, it should look a little abstract when you’re done. If you have trouble seeing through the tracing vellum, you may use the light-table. Be sure that I’ve seen your tracing BEFORE you detach the printout from the tracing vellum.
STEP 6: When I’ve given you the go-ahead, detach your printout. Please put it in your folder, since you might need it later. Now, you must make another decision. If your picture looks good in reverse (in mirror image), you can save time and go directly to STEP 7. Otherwise, continue with this step. Take your tracing, turn it over and trace over those same lines, so you have a tracing on both sides of the vellum.
STEP 7: Place your tracing vellum pencil-side down onto a piece of construction paper. Look carefully at your tracing. If you see one or more parts of your picture that you want to be that color, trace over their outlines. The pencil lines from the other side of the vellum will transfer to the construction paper. (You may use your computer printout as a guide, or you may make up your own colors.) Carefully cut out the pieces of colored paper. Leave the remainder on the table; someone else might be able to use it. Continue in this way until you have a colored piece for every section of your line drawing. BE SURE TO USE BRIGHT, CONTRASTING COLORS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR ACTUAL SKIN COLOR!
Helpful tip: Sign your name in the corner of your sheet of vellum, so that you know which side is “up.” Also, draw a little check mark in each section of the drawing after you’ve traced it onto the construction paper. When all the sections have check marks, you’re done with this step.
STEP 8: The background. If you decide to color the background in, make sure the colors and values contrast sharply with your portrait colors, so that you stand out. Sun-rays and swirls are good. You could even make it look like you’re in the Sea of Holes – be sure to draw your holes lightly in pencil before using black marker, to make sure they’re where you want them. You may also use a plain sheet of construction paper – any color you wish. Black is usually pretty good. Carefully lay your colored pieces down on your background paper to see how it looks.
STEP 9: Carefully glue or paste your pieces down. For an unusual effect, try spacing them apart slightly; your face will appear a bit larger, and you can embellish your portrait by adding black lines between the sections, or just letting the background show through.
Have fun, and Peace Out!
Left to right: original photograph; altered version using “neon glow” effect; outline on tracing vellum.
Example: Here’s a photo of President Richard M. Nixon, along with a general idea of how to start out. (What’s funny about this is that Nixon was as far from the Psychedelic Movement as one can get!) Nixon became President in 1968, and consequently was in office when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the Moon in 1969. He was re-elected in 1972, but was forced to resign in 1974 because of his involvement in what came to be known as the “Watergate Scandal.” It turned out that his re-election committee, with his knowledge, had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (located in Washington’s Watergate Hotel) during the 1972 campaign. He wasn’t the first president to make a really bad decision, and he certainly wasn’t the last. But he nearly got impeached for it, and unfortunately many people remember him to this day for the Watergate Scandal.
There was much more to “Tricky Dick” Nixon than scandal, however. Though he was not very likeable as a public figure, and preferred to keep to himself, he was quite intelligent, had a decent family life, and was such an insightful politician that every president from then on would call on him for advice, up until his death on April 22, 1994.
While in office, he passed legislation that enabled the Civil Rights Movement to reach its goals. He passed legislation that granted Native American tribes the right to self-government. He withdrew U.S. troops from Vietnam, ending American involvement in that messy war. He traveled to China and the USSR and helped normalize U.S. relations with those two countries. His Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, helped set up peace negotiations between Israel and its opponents Egypt and Syria.
He was a very private man outside of politics, and little was made known about his personal life until his later years. Among his more interesting talents: he could play about 13 musical instruments!
PSYCHEDELIC PORTRAIT
RECOMMENDED EFFECTS FROM ADOBE PHOTO DELUXE
(Do NOT remove from this computer!)
After you’ve brought your photo into Photo Deluxe, save a copy of it by clicking
FILE > SEND TO > HOLD PHOTO
This is so that you’ll have a fresh copy within easy reach in case you really mess up and can’t undo.
SPECIAL EFFECTS:
ART: Posterize; Glowing Edges
FUN: Negative
COOL: Neon Glow
COOLER: Solarize
ADVANCED > EFFECTS > SPECIAL EFFECTS:
ARTISTIC: Find Edges; Posterize
FUN: Shear; Sphere; Negative
“Shear” makes the picture look like it was taken through an anamorphic lens, or is reflected in a bent mirror. “Sphere” looks like the view through a fisheye lens.
COOL: Neon Glow
COOLER: Solarize
Please stick to the effects I’ve indicated here. The other effects are all good, and many are interesting; but this assignment calls for photographic effects available in the 1960s and 1970s.
Other people need to use the computer, so please try to finish your computer effect in five minutes or less. Thank you! J
SOURCES
Crowley, Monica. The Nixon I Knew. Lecture given 4-18-01 at Camden County College
Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. Bear & Co., New Mexico, 1985
Kitzhaber, Albert R. et al., ed. Literature IV, V and VI. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York, 1970
Knobler, Nathan. The Visual Dialogue. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York, 1971
Kollowski, Dean. Watch What We Do (Nixon’s Civil Rights Revolution). Lecture given 3-7-01 at Camden County College
MacGregor, John M. The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. Princeton University Press, 1989
MSN UK’s Beatles Website. http://msn.co.uk/page/11-513.asp
Nixon, Patricia Ryan. Richard M. Nixon, 37th President 1969-1974 Website http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rn37.html
Pesant, Steven C. jimihendrix.com – the Official Jimi Hendrix Website
Pesda, Dr. Jack. Lectures, 3-7-01 – 4-25-01, given at Camden County College
Russell, John. The Meanings of Modern Art. Museum of Modern Art and Harper & Row, 1981
Stoffel, Stephanie Lovett. The Art of Alice in Wonderland. The Wonderland Press, 1998
Turner, Steve. A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles’ Song. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1997
Waters, Lilith, history buff. Interesting factoids about Nixon, told to me over the past few months.
Watson, Jane Werner and Sol Chaneles. The Golden Book of the Mysterious. Western Publishing Company, 1976. (Illustrations by Alan Lee.)
Wayne, Steven. A Presidency of Enemies: Nixon & Watergate. Lecture given 4-4-01 at Camden County College