Georgia O'Keefe Inspired Watercolors

This is the first watercolor project we do in Painting 1. We practice with watercolor, create color wheels, and go outside and paint flowers in the open air. Then we begin this project. There is a presentation on Georgia O'Keefe with a little bio and examples of her art work. The students then create a collage that is inspired by O'Keefe. The collage is what there composition will be. Once they have created their collage, the student begins their final composition. Things they need to think about are: Color scheme, composition, craftsmanship. By creating a collage, we are avoiding just printing images off the internet, which I despise! I just realized my best examples all integrated birds into the composition. But, they all have great color schemes, interesting compositions and are very neat. 

Sadie S.

Tasha Y. 

Madison M.

Form and Value still life, with a little critique on the side

Art 1 Still life

In art 1, I follow the elements of art. The focus for this still life was form and value. Yeah, still lifes are super boring, the students don't really like it... to start with. I set up the still life and all the kids groaned and moaned. I gave them all view finders (which we had used before) and a piece of white sulphite. The view finder is great to help with where to start. As the drawings progress, and the students are kind of timid about getting dark, I kept pushing them to see a whole range of value. Previously, we had created value scales. I went as far as growling DARK, and using a high light voice for light. The students find it funny, but it reaches them. As the students continue to draw, they can see their own improvement and actually start to enjoy the boring old still life. The following are a variety of examples of finished products. 

Hunter L. 

Richard T. 

Ali G.

The Critique

After each project, my class critiques in some way. For this projects we did a gallery group critique.

I placed all the drawings up with numbers and no names. The students are put in groups and have to answer the proceeding questions and then share with the large group. Its a great way to see everyone's work, compare and contrast, but also give constructive criticism. 

Group Critique- Still life; value and form

Group Members

As a group please answer the following questions

1. Pick 3 compositions (drawings) tell me what is successful about these drawings- be specific

2. Using the same 3 compositions, what can be improved

3. As  group discuss what was the most difficult thing about this assignment, what was the easiest?

4. Name 3 things you learned by drawing this still life

Focus on emphasis and color

In my Drawing 1 class, we are focusing on the principles of design. For the first project, I set up a still life. The focus on the still life was emphasis. We used view finders, and the student had to find a view that the still life touched 3 sides of the view finder. They were to focus on correct perspective and "Draw what they see" (Betty Edwards reference). To finish the composition, they wanted the emphasis to be on the fruit. So using pastel pencils, they created value with color on the fruit. The rest of the project was done in fine tipped Sharpie. It was a really nice beginning project, and help me to see the skill level of some of the students that I had not had in class before.