The lowbrow culture, also known as pop surrealism or pop art, has its firm place in today’s art world. While giving a definition of lowbrow art isn’t easy, there are certain characteristics that many lowbrow artworks have in common. Art is free. That’s why there’s no ‘How to do lowbrow art’ one-and-only-method. In this post, I take you along on my personal story of how *I* am doing lowbrow art.
What does Lowbrow Art mean?
Phrasing an exact Lowbrow Art definition has never been easy. Because one particularity of the Lowbrow movement is that it doesn’t fit into a specific genre of art. Lowbrow Art takes on different forms and styles in different regions, places, and social conditions.
This also reflects in the various names that Lowbrow Art has received over time. It is also widely known under the name of Pop Surrealism. Some refer to it as the ‘West Coast’ style or ‘Underground’, others call it ‘Neo-Pop’, ‘Pop Art’ or ‘Kustom Kulture’, to only mention a few.
Related: → What Does ‘Lowbrow Art’ Mean?
However, there are some characteristics of lowbrow art that many of the images of this genre have in common.
The one thing that probably strikes you first and foremost when looking at lowbrow artworks are the stylized faces of child-like women, with large heads and doe eyes.
In fact, many lowbrow works depict female characters with proportionally oversized heads, as compared to their bodies. The expressive eyes take up a large part of the face, while nose and lips are distinctly smaller.
The scene may feature animals, objects, candy, and elements of nature that all have a life of their own.
The compositions take you into a dreamscape and tell you a visual story. Despite all the apparent innocence, lowbrow artworks often hold a deeper secret that gives away a dark and disturbing relation between the main character and their surroundings.
What is the Lowbrow Culture?
The Lowbrow Culture, as we know it today, started out as an underground visual art movement around Los Angeles, California, in the late 1970s. In its early beginnings, it didn’t have any self-consciousness, so there wasn’t even a name for it.
For many years, the ‘art establishment’ and mainstream critics didn’t recognize it as an art movement in its own right.
Today, the Lowbrow movement has its firmly secured position in the art world.
This is primarily thanks to the efforts of Lowbrow artist Robert Williams. He founded the Juxtapoz Magazine back in 1994. This step significantly helped legitimize the movement and gain it worldwide recognition.
The magazine is still being published today and it’s the second most-read art magazine in the USA!
Many other lowbrow art magazines joined in along the way, such as Hi-Fructose Magazine, RVA Magazine, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, …
Besides, many galleries in the U.S. and all around the world display lowbrow works and offer lowbrow art for sale. 01 Gallery in New York and the Psychedelic Solutions Gallery in Los Angeles are two top exhibition halls for Lowbrow Art in the United States.
What is the difference between Surrealism and Pop Art?
As I mentioned above, another name that Lowbrow was also given is Pop Art (even though there are significant differences between the two art styles as they are today).
The goal of both Lowbrow and Pop Art was always to rise out of convention. In this respect, they are very much like Surrealism.
Related: → Surreal Art – What Does ‘Surreal’ Mean In Art?
Initially, Lowbrow was a revolt against political and social norms and against the academic conceptualism of the 1960s.
However, unlike Lowbrow, Surrealism never had to go through the same struggle to secure its position in the art world.
Another difference between Surrealism and Pop Art lies in the different cultural influences.
Lowbrow draws inspiration from street art, underground comic, punk rock motifs, tiki culture, tattoo parlors, and experimental illustration. Other influences come from Japanese anime and pulp art.
To get a better idea, check out my most about → What Is The Difference Between Surrealism And Pop Art?.
What is Highbrow and Lowbrow?
Highbrow and Lowbrow are both terms that originated in the early nineteenth century from a science called phrenology.
Nowadays, Highbrow, Lowbrow, and Middlebrow are used as categories for culture in general – arts, fashion, furniture, dance, food, and so on.
Highbrow is synonymous with intellectual. It can also mean elite, and carries the meaning of ‘high culture’. It generally stands for ‘intellectually demanding’ cultural pursuits.
When used for music, highbrow refers to classical music. Everything mainstream, like pop, rock, hip hop, etc., is considered lowbrow.
In terms of highbrow vs lowbrow literature, highbrow describes literary fiction, classic novels, and poetry. Examples of lowbrow literature would be science fiction, fantasy, and romance.
Coming back to surrealism, surrealist paintings would be the highbrow, while pop art is – precisely – the lowbrow.
→ Learn more about the difference between Highbrow and Lowbrow
Is my art Lowbrow?
I like to think of my art as a blend of lowbrow and surrealism. I like to create what doesn’t exist and use my works to tell surreal stories.
When looking at my digital creations, you’ll see that there’s always a deeper story behind.
I like to include elements of nature, oftentimes birds, flowers, roses, …
Many of my works also display elements of death, which are – for me – symbols of life. Existence is evanescent. Everything is to end. That’s why I see vanitas symbols as a reminder of its fugaciousness, and therefore as a reminder to live life.
And, all of my works feature elements of my self. I always give my face to the ladies that I create, sometimes arms, hands, …
However, once in the image, it’s no longer me, it becomes them. I no longer think of the ladies as I, I think of them as they.
Want to get to know me a lil' bit better?
How to do Lowbrow Art?
First off, for me, art means freedom. Everyone is free to create whatever they wish. There are no restrictions and no limits. You can give your creativity free rein, mix whatever styles you wish, combine whatever techniques you like, and use whatever media you want.
Hence, there is no ‘correct‘ way of ‘How to do lowbrow art‘, either.
In the following passages, I’m going to show you my personal story of how I am doing lowbrow art.
As I always use my face in my artworks, I need to modify my features to mold them into the typical doll-like lowbrow style.
That means to enlarge the eyes, change the facial proportions, and resize nose and chin area to achieve the desired look.
So, if you like to see the basic steps that I apply to create my lowbrow photomanipulations, you’re welcome to follow me along! And then, if you wish, you can do your own lowbrow art with your own self…
I’m going to show you my basic work process with an image that I did back in 2012 – one of my first photomanipulations in the area of pop surrealism / lowbrow.
Just like any other artist, I started out by emulating my favorite pieces of art. ‘Evola’ by SleepySh on DeviantArt is a piece that I absolutely loved at the time and still love today.
Related: Is It OK Learning From Copying Art?
‘Evola’ is a digital painting, and in ‘Broken Dreams’ I tried to mimic the main characteristics, mainly the facial features, using my own face and manipulating it accordingly. I added a bit of my own vision with the splashing heart in her hands to illustrate the concept of ‘broken dreams’.
Of course, ‘Broken Dreams’ is not for sale. However, it’s still available on my DeviantArt account.
Even though my style has changed significantly over the years, the basic steps are still the same!
‘Evola’ – digital painting by SleepySh on DeviantArt and the inspiration to one of my very early photo manipulations from 2012.
‘Broken Dreams’ – photo manipulation with my own face emulating the features of ‘Evola’.
Step #1: Take a photo of yourself
Before starting a new piece of art, I usually have a picture in my mind of what I’m planning to do. Then, I’m trying to mentally work out that picture as clearly as possible – with all details, colors, etc.
Once I have that clear picture, I take a photo of myself, with the posture, expression, gestures, etc. that come as close to my vision as possible.
Step #2: Enlarge eyes and change facial proportions
As soon as the photo is in the bag, the digital processing in Photoshop begins.
I usually start by enlarging the eyes and changing the facial proportions to achieve the typical lowbrow doll-like features.
I select both eyes with the Rectangular Marquee Tool and copy them onto new layers.
After that, I enlarge both eyes evenly (Edit > Transform > Scale) and move them a bit downwards. This results in a larger forehead and the child-like proportions of the face that I wish to create.
Finally, I add a layer mask and hide the edges of the cut out eyes to make everything blend in nicely.
Related: → How To Change The Opacity Of Part Of An Image In Photoshop
Step #3: Liquify Chin and jawline
Next is the chin and jawline.
Dolls tend to have a small chin and a narrow jawline. So that’s what I try to emulate in step 3.
I use the Forward Warp Tool in Photoshop’s Liquify filter (Filter > Liquify) to push everything in and narrow down the lower part of the face.
I sometimes repeat this process a couple times until I’m happy with the result.
Step #4: Establish desired overall proportions
Step #3 brings me a lot closer to the desired lowbrow look, but there are still some more things to do.
I make the nose and lips smaller, again using the Forward Warp Tool or the Pucker Tool in the Liquify filter.
I also use these tools to resize other parts of the face that do not yet fully match the doll proportions.
For the image right here, I’ve also used the Warp Tool (Edit > Transform > Warp) to enlarge the forehead and downsize the chin area. I throw in some blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to smoothen up everything.
Right now, things start to look weird, right? But you know you’re close when your face starts resembling an alien… 👽
In the example, I’ve copied hands and body onto a new layer in order to be able to scale them down as well.
Step #5: Color, overpaint, and add background
As you see in the example, coloring and overpainting is what fixes the ‘alien look’ and gives the image its actual feel and expression.
I usually give my ladies some nice eye make-up, and overpaint the eyebrows, lips, and face in general, as needed.
Then, I would add accessories, if I wish, like the little heart in the example.
If the original background isn’t what I want, I would cut out the subject and replace the background.
Related: → How To Create A Surreal Photomanipulation – Easy 3-Step Process To Cut Out Things
Step #6: Do the fine-tuning and clean everything up
The basic work is done. Step #6 is more about the fine-tuning. I finish up the last edits, and give the overall image a final polish.
I add the hair, go over the eyes and the face again, and smooth out and clean up everything that is not supposed to be in the final image, i.e. sharp edges where something isn’t masked properly, etc.
Finally, I might add some adjustment layers, like Curves, Color Balance, or Selective Color to bump up the brightness and tweak the colors.
Related: → How To Make A Photo Warmer In Photoshop – 5 EASY WAYS
And that was it. These are the basic working steps that I use in all my lowbrow artworks.
I hope you enjoyed this little journey into my personal way of how to do lowbrow art, and got inspired to maybe do your own art with your self! 😘
I hope you enjoyed following me along my personal lowbrow working process and were able to pick up some useful tips for your own art. If you got inspired by this post, don’t forget to drop a me a link to your lowbrow creations in the comments! Thanks for stopping by and all the best on your personal artistic journey! Angie 💖
Hi Angie! Would you mind if I share your blog with my zynga group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Cheers
Hi Elyza, I don’t mind when if you share my posts with others. Glad to hear that you find my content helpful (: