Georgia O'Keefe's flowers

Georgia O'Keefe
American
1887-1986

Mainly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells and landscapes.  She often transformed her subjects into powerful ABSTRACT images.

She uses bold colors in her often huge paintings.  She tends to concentrated on just the little details, like the inside of the flower or just the petals.

"Filling a space in a beautiful way.  That is what art means to me."
-Georgia O'Keefe

Materials needed:
- Large watercolor paper
- Examples of Georgia O'Keefe's work
- Pencils
- Watercolor paints (or Tempera or acrylic paint if you prefer)
- Brushes
- Fresh flowers or photos of flowers (optional)
- Magnifying glasses (optional)

Directions:
1.  This part is optional, but I brought in an old calendar that had wonderful photographs of flowers.  The kids took magnifying glasses and we studying the photos, concentrating on the details.  We talked about how O'Keefe painted her flowers, up close and almost abstract.
2.  We started by lighting drawing in pencil our flowers shapes, stress the importance of really filling up the page, don't be afraid to let the petal "fall off the page", remind them that we are trying to draw a flower as if we were looking at it through our magnifying glass.
3.  Once they are happy with their sketch, add color!  Try to not leave any white space on your paper.