O'Keefe knew she wanted to be an artist from the age of 12. When she went to art school she didn't think her lessons were relevant but in 1912 she discovered the radical ideas of the artist Arthur Wesley Dow.
His ideas were about the importance of composition — which is the way you arrange shapes and colours.
Can you transform these shapes into objects, plants or imaginary creatures? Think about the different shapes and colours you could use. vice: d a t ’s n Ar tis space i ’ y a ‘ F i l l u t i f u l wa a a be
In the 1930s, Georgia O’Keeffe lived in two places. She spent the winter living in New York City and the summer living in the desert in New Mexico.
In New York, tall buildings called skyscrapers blocked out her view of the sky or cut into the sky to form unusual shapes like in this artwork, New York Street With Moon.
In New Mexico, O'Keeffe was surrounded by sky, mountains and dry plains like in this painting called My Backyard. Sometimes, she slept on the roof to enjoy the view of the sky!
Make a marbled sky! You will need: • • • • • • •
Shaving foam A shallow dish Liquid watercolour paints Spoons A stick (a chopstick will do) Paper Piece of old card
Whe Top tip! re I s i t i s yo u r Think hot or co sky? ld a colo bout wh ? urs t i o us c h e. 1. Fill your shallow dish with shaving foam.
2. With the spoon, add drops of different paint colours across the shaving foam.
3. With your stick, gently swirl the colours and shaving foam so you have a marble effect.
4. Carefully press your paper on top of the shaving foam, then slowly lift it up.
5. Using the old piece of card, scrape away your excess foam and ta-da! Now you have a beautiful marbled sky.
Find the way from the Black Place, where Georgia and her friends liked to camp, back to her house at Ghost Ranch.
Black Place
Star t
Box Canyon
Chapel
Chimney Rock
F inish Ghost Ranch
Abiquiu Reservoir Rio Chama river
O’Keeffe made lots of up-close flower paintings – around 200! She was interested in their simple colours and forms, and would focus on one part to make them look abstract. In this painting called Oriental Poppies she has zoomed in, making them seem magnified.
Abstract art is when you express yourself with colours and shapes without having to capture something exactly as it appears in real life.
Find a flower or plant outside. Draw it here.
Now look carefully at one part and zoom in with your eye. Draw it below. Does it still look like your original plant?
What can you see unfolding in this painting called Abstraction White Rose? Is it a wave, clouds, smoke, a rose or a mountain?
Continue the painting beyond the edges of the image and show what happens as it continues to unfold.
There were some things Georgia O’Keeffe painted over and over again. One was the door on the side of her house. Draw your own front door six times. Can you make it look different each time?
Experiment with what a fast rhythm might look like and then try a slow one. What happens to your drawing when the rhythm changes? You can use pencils, crayons or paints to create your song pictures.
Th of a is is a C a n n i m a g d ra w i n in g yo u tr y ar y so hum n min g. g it?
Georgia O’Keeffe often put colours together that were very different from one another. One art writer described her colour combinations as ‘tart’ like sour berries, ‘biting’, and ‘pungent’. Experiment by putting colours side by side. Find a pairing that looks:
sickly sweet
salty
hot and spicy
bland and tasteless
sweet and sour