Georgia O'Keeffe

My homeschool group studied the work of Georgia O'Keeffe today. We talked about her work -specifically her flower paintings. 

Our class learned about abstraction and how O'Keeffe became fascinated with the idea after seeing how photographs could be cropped in such a way as to make an image of a real thing become abstract.

We talked about composition and expressing emotions through art with color and line.

Our project today was to create our own 18"x24" mixed media flower painting. We took some time to learn how to use watercolor techniques, such as wet on wet and wet on dry painting. We also explored the special effects salt and isopropyl alcohol have on wet watercolors. For our art work we also used pastel chalks, so we experimented with dry chalk and rubbing, dry chalk gone over with a wet brush, and chalks dipped in water before drawing. The kids took some time to practice all of these techniques and to create a sketch and color plan for their final work.

watercolor exploration

chalk exploration

thinking about composition

making a plan

trying out techniques

even our youngest students were very busy!

With our plans in place the final work began.

watercolor sketch

amazing color

working in chalk

dynamic design

gorgeous

painting over chalk

lots of space, lots of texture

very abstract= very interesting

chalk dipped in water before drawing

wet paint on wet paper

new idea, spray drying watercolor lightly with water... cool results

everyone is finishing up

We had some really beautiful results! Great work everyone.

detail

detail

detail

detail

detail

Printed Paintings

 Printed Paintings

Today in preschool art class we made printed paintings. We followed the steps in the sequence as shown. First we used the side of a cardboard strip to print the tree and branches in brown and black. Next we used potatoes and fingers to print bird bodies and heads in blue. Then we printed grass and leaves with a smaller piece of card board and fingers. We added beaks and feet with orange markers. Finally, we printed some flowers and apples with fingers in red!

We also made nests by glueing dried grasses to brown paper. Once the painting was done students glued the nests onto the painting for super cute finished pieces

Here we are working hard.

cute finger prints

printing branches

                             Printing grass

Here are a few of the finished pieces.

I get to work with some of the cutest people!