Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers

Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artwork most known for her paintings of flowers, shells and landscapes. We are going to focus on her flowers for this week's lesson. Many of O'Keeffe's flowers did not even look like flowers. That is because sometimes she painted her flowers so large that they came off the page. So we only can see part of the flower. Look at the painting of the flower below. Does that look like a flower or is it hard to tell? Can we see the entire flower?

We are each going to make a flower today that is too large for our paper. This may be the first time you create artwork where part of your picture is cut off. We will make these beautiful flowers like Georgia O'Keeffe did. Below are some more flower paintings by this artist.

We are going to start our project with a square piece of paper. First we will draw (in pencil) the center of our flower. This should be around the middle of your paper. It can look like a circle, oval or wavy shape. It should be small. Below are a couple of examples of how you could draw the center of your flower.

After you draw the center of your flower, you should draw some short lines coming away from your center. They can be different lengths.

Are you ready to draw your flower petals? Great! I drew 4 petals on my flower but you can draw whatever amount of petals you want. Here's the tricky part though - at least one of your petals has to come off the page. That is because your flower should be bigger than the paper. Drawing something that does not fit on the page may feel a little uncomfortable for you. That's okay! This is a way to draw that will be easier for you after you try it a few times.

I knew you could do it! Great job! We are now ready to start painting our flowers. You do not have to trace your pencil with anything. You can go right from pencil to watercolors. Paint your flowers any way you want. If the colors mix together while you are painting, do not worry! That happens sometimes when you paint and it can look beautiful! If you do not want you colors mixing together, let them dry before you start a new color.

Remember, if you don't have watercolors you can color with whatever supplies you have at home. Here are three more examples:

Make sure you check out the section "Fun Activities for Everyone"

for extra art activities