I made this image of one of my favourite guitarists, Jimi Hendrix. He is associated with flamboyant clothing and psychedelic colourful artwork on his album covers and guitars so I tried to make this image as vibrant as possible.
To do this I followed the basic techniques of pop art that I’ve used before. Only this time instead of underlaying the image with flat Warhol-esque colours, I put in various colour gradients on different layers.
This was achieved by getting a new blank layer (clicking on “Create a new layer” icon in the Layers palette, or cmd/ctrl-opt-shift-N) filling it with a gradient of the colour spectrum (select the Gradient Tool (G) and in the Info palette select one of the two spectrums available, to apply the gradient simply drag the Gradient Tool across the image). This can be done repeatedly on different layers. I set the layers’ blending modes so that the colours on all of the layers can be seen and merge together in a complimentary way so that the result is kaleidoscopic. The blending mode I found most useful for this was Difference, but I also used Linear Burn and Soft Light.
I also used three different greyscale layers of the man himself of differing opacities. Multiply, Screen and Pin Light were the layers’ blending modes used here but Multiply is usually the most effective for the black in pop art. One or two of these layers were blurred.
Importantly, this effect can be used to resample a tiny web pic up to a large high resolution print ready image with no loss of quality!
You can download the low resolution PSD here. jimi-hendrix-psychedelic-pop-art.psd 4.6MB
Nice image! Very cool — Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, Jenna!
I love the picture – I just made it my desktop background ( I hope that’s cool with you). Amazing…..
Of course I don’t mind, Jeremy. Glad it’s of use to you!
Thats a really cool image and its a good technique to add to ones repertoire.
Thanks, Anthony, you can never have too many techniques!
I love what you did with this image! I think you captured the color and feel of the 60′s.
Thank you, TripTheLady, I was born in the 60′s and I’ve always been a bit of a hippy!
oh this picture is greaty i love jimi hendrix and jim morrison♥ i want a poster of this
Glad you like it, Jennifer.
it’s so cool really i like it
hey what graphics design program do you use also congrats on the awesome pic very nice
Glad you like it, anonymous.
This is done in Photoshop, corey.
I think your art work is great and i love that it draws you in at jimmy keep it going
staci mcmillan 15
Thank you, Staci!
its not that great
crazy.
qe pedo pz de huevos zta
pinshe imagen zta ashi bn chingona
como ya te abras dado
cuenta no ablo ingles
pero pz zoi mexicano
jejejeje qe pendejada lo se we
pero pz de huevos como lo
dije tu imagen se be bn verga
pz va kamara………
buena bibra kozmika
y mucha p.l.u.r.
jejeje
i love psycho!!!!!!
haha i set it as my desktop background too. love it!
beth, kelly, gustavo and wakely, thank you for your comments – I think it would look good as a desktop background for a few weeks, good idea!
i really like it im going to use it for my inspiration in my g.c.s.e art!
Good luck, katie, with you GCSEs and I hope you’re enjoying art – and I’m glad this is inspirational to you.
way beyond cooooooooooool!
Could you make me one for my girlfiend?
Can I send you a picture of her, or something?
please, please answer me
Prices start at 150$US, Matthias
Love Hendrix and the trippiness haha
good love you thanks
cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool