Art Lesson: Georgia O'Keefe

THE CHAIR-LESS ART STUDIO:
As I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite classes is the one where we sit in a room with no chairs...

OBSERVING NATURE OUTSIDE:
One day, when I had lots of friends & extra volunteers visiting this class, we went outside. In the spirit of true nature enthusiasts, we observed the flowers with magnifying glasses. Not always noticable to the naked human eye, I pointed out how the flower's pedals are made up of many colors and not just one.

BAD IDEA:I then made a mistake of secretly picking a couple flowers from the garden to have as a point of reference for when we returned back to the classroom. Needless to say, one of the teachers saw my flower picking & did not approve. I tried to say I found them -already picked- and laying on the ground; but it was a bad stretch of the truth. I then tried to justify the sacrifice of these flowers for the sake of art & study of science; but I learned my lesson & will never pick flowers from a garden again.












LESSON ABOUT THE ARTIST:
I told the students about Georgia O'Keefe, the American female artist who is most famous for her up-close depictions of over 200 flower paintings. We discussed her life & learned about how O'Keefe gradually lost her eyesight as she got older.



FLOWER PAINTING PROJECT:
I asked the class to pretend they are ants crawling along the pedals of their flowers while they paint their masterpieces. We learned as well about composition, as I demonstrated how to zoom in using your hands to crop the view of the flower on our paper. We then preceeded to paint the flowers with watercolor.


MY OBSERVANCES:
I was amazed about how focused the students were with their flower paintings. Although some needed a bit of an extra boost at the beginning, when they had to sketch their flowers, everyone was right on target once they began painting. I could tell they were enjoying themselves immensely.




THE STUDENTS:
These 2 photos are of a set of twins in my class, named Said & Aseer.















We did not get the chance to complete the flowers in the 1 hour class period, especially because I explained to everyone that their papers had to be completely covered with water color. At the start of the next class, while I was grabbing a few extra materials from ths supply room, the children went ahead on their own, without any teacher guidance, and preceeded to begin completing their O'Keefe flowers. This was an extremlely rewarding site to see as I entered the classroom.