O’KEEFFE ART PROJECT
WATERCOLOR FLOWER CARDS
MATERIALS
 Purchase watercolor paper (may be able to get bulk rate through school) or
use art paper provided by art dept.
 Watercolor sets (we have enough small sets per student and larger sets for
sharing).
 Bring plastic cups and containers for water.
 Brushes (in cabinet and art dept.)
 Silk flowers and colorful flower pots (in cabinet).
 Scrap paper (art dept).
 May want to purchase bright color plastic table cover (rolls sold at Party
City) for look and durability.
 Pencils and erasers (art dept).
PREP
 Fold watercolor paper carefully in half.
PROJECT
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Instruct students that they are going to be O’Keefe and create close up
flower watercolor painting.
Each student is given ONE price of watercolor paper and a scrap piece to
practice on before beginning, since a second piece of watercolor paper is not
available.
Pick your flower and decide which angle to paint from (top, bottom, side,
etc.) or how close up you want to go (bug’s eye view). Write your name and
class on back of the card.
Sketch your flower first, stretching the flower over the edges. Then begin
painting.
When finished, work was left to dry on the bookcases and then delivered to
classrooms. Depending on the time of year, the teachers may be able to
incorporate the card into a Mother’s Day card or poems.
GEORGIA’S APPROACH TO
PAINTING FLOWERS
“...I often painted FRAGMENTS OF THINGS because it
seemed to make my statement as well as or better than
the whole could” Georgia O’Keeffe
The close up was more exciting than the whole flower.
Georgia took serious chances with color, sometimes
unsettling conventions in order to STARTLE THE EYE.
She wanted to draw people into her painting..make them
look at the details they might otherwise walk past.
Her bones almost seemed STRANGELY ALIVE even
though she never painted animals or people.
The natural contrast of the white dead bones against the
bright colors of the desert made them alive. It is all found
in nature.
Although her subjects were taken from life and related to
the places where she had been, they were SUBJECTIVE.
Subjective means existing in the mind, so it may not be
totally real. Sometimes the forms she did may be her
ideas, not the actual reality of the flower
ART PROJECT NOTES
Focus your attention on MAGNIFYING and SIMPLIFYING
the form.
Examine your flower carefully, study the colors, shapes,
patterns and designs.
Try DIFFERENT VIEWS, from the top, bottom, side, other
side, etc.
Or select ONE PART OF THE FLOWER, one detail and
paint that as is you were looking at it from a magnifying
glass or a bug’s eye view of your flower.
When you paint, use your ENTIRE canvas (or paper),
stretching shapes and colors further than they may really
be represented in reality.
Use BRIGHT colors contrasted against SOFTER colors. A
mellow yellow works against fire red or a mint green
against an ocean blue.
Flow with the natural shape and CURVE. The abstraction
is not about perfect straight lines and representation, but a
subjective feel of what the flower looks like.
Georgia often used EVERY shade of one color in a
painting.