Monday, February 3, 2014

Zooming Into O'Keeffe

 


Our third grade artists started off this unit discussing what a contour line is (the outside or edge of an object) and how artists often create blind contour drawings as an exercise for the eyes.  We also defined drawing from observation as drawing what we see.  Next, we brought in an object from nature and created our own blind continuous contour drawings by carefully transferring what we saw in front of us onto our paper, WITHOUT LOOKING at our composition! Students were amazed to see how much detail they saw for the first time after such careful observation. For some art appreciation and inspiration we examined the American artist Georgia O'Keeffe and discussed how she often zoomed in to
objects from nature such as flowers and skulls, which categorized her work as ABSTRACT (artwork that that realistic and often categorized by the use of geometric lines, shapes, and bold bright color). 

We started out own artwork inspired by O'Keeffe with creating a zoomed in view drawing.  Students brought in everything from pumpkins, leaves, gourdes, and shells.  After that, we had a discussion on how VALUE is how light or dark a color is and created out own value charts for homework with a colored pencil by applying different amounts of pressure.  We continued to work on value charts in class by using a color plus black or white  to prepare for our monochromatic paintings paying careful attention to the lights and darks on our object.  Some our students zoomed in so much they have truly abstract masterpieces,  while others chose to include more of the entire subject in their work.


The last part of this lesson was using complimentary colors (colors that are opposite on the color wheel and show the strongest contrast when put together) in the background of our compositions and adding oil pastels to help blend the different values together.  Students were so excited as they realized many of their favorite sports teams including one that would be in the Super bowl incorporated complimentary colors in their uniforms. 

Georgia O’KeeffeRed Canna, 1924 


Georgia O'Keeffe, Series 1, No. 4 , 1918 
  
STUDENT WORK

























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