
Grade 1 & 2 have been learning all about colour and over the past few weeks this focus turned to warm and cool colours. Students were asked to create a drawing with a warm foreground and a cool background (or vice versa). As we discovered, some colours, like green, can be both warm and cool.
In sketching the flowers students had an opportunity to apply the observational drawing technique that we discussed in our first week of art together. As demonstrated here the students did a wonderful job of focusing on the shapes they could see with their eyes, not the ones they could see in their minds.


For inspiration we looked at some of Georgia O’keeffe’s famous flower paintings. After discussing her work I informed students that Georgia O’keefe’s flower paintings were very large, sometimes 9 or 10 feet wide. I then asked the question:
“Why would she want to paint something as small and delicate as a flower so large?”
It was wonderful to hear the students carefully considered responses. In general the classes agreed that Ms. O’keeffe’s intention was to make people stop and look, to notice the details and not miss the beauty and grace of a humble flower.
Made you look!


This lesson was inspired by this post from the wonderful blog artlessonsforkids.wordpress.com