Classroom Activity

Art Starters: Georgia O'Keeffe

Part of Art Tales for Pre-K

Georgia O’Keeffe is famous for her large paintings of flowers, shells, and bones. In this work, O’Keeffe makes the flower larger than it is in real life, making us notice its unique color and design. This painting is part of a series. In each painting of the series, O’Keeffe zooms in closer to the center of the flower, making it harder to recognize as a flower.

The curling, flaring petal of a jack-in-the-pulpit blossom wrapping around a vertical, elongated core nearly fills this vertical painting. The flower rises from a narrow base and is veined with white against dark, maroon red. It unfurls to reveal the deep maroon stamen within. Spring-green leaves span the lower edge of the composition, beneath the flower, and billow around the blossom, across the top of the painting. A soft blue and white background recalls clouds in a bright sky.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, 1930, oil on canvas, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe, © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1987.58.2

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Look

What colors do you see? Name and describe them.

Find colors, lines, and shapes that repeat throughout the painting.

Compare this painting to another one in the series. How is it the same? How is it different?

Which is your favorite painting in the series? Why?

What are some reasons why an artist might make a painting of a flower?

What are some other art supplies you could use to make a series of flower paintings?

Read

Lola Plants a Garden (Spanish language version: Lola planta un jardín)
by Anna McQuinn and Rosalind Beardshaw

Lola learns all about gardening and then, with her family, plants her own garden and waits patiently for flowers to grow.

Through Georgia’s Eyes
by Rachel Rodríguez and Julie Paschkis

This book offers the biography of O'Keeffe and her lifelong interest in he wonders of nature.

Make: Zoom in on a flower

You Will Need

  • Fresh flowers or a potted (flowering) plant
  • Pencil
  • Paintbrushes
  • Watercolor paints
  • Watercolor paper
  • Sponge or paper towel
  • Cup or container of water

First, take time to look closely at a single flower. Notice its colors and patterns, the shapes of its petals, and all of its parts. Try to zoom in and get a bug’s-eye view of the flower!

Next, use a pencil to draw the shape of the flower. Make your drawing fill the watercolor paper, maybe even going off the edges, so that the flower looks larger-than-life.

Use watercolor paints to fill in your flower drawing. For large areas of color, such as petals and leaves, first wet the paper with a damp sponge or paper towel, then brush on the watercolor so it spreads. Let the paint and paper dry before adding patterns and details.

Vocab Bank

  • damp
  • pattern
  • pulpit
  • series
  • watercolor

Download

Art Tales: Coloring and Cut-Outs booklet (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Art Tales for Pre-K (PDF, 7.2 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte: Colorear y Recortes (PDF, 3.7 MB)

Uncovering America: Faces of America teaching resource

An Eye for Art: Georgia O'Keeffe teaching resource (PDF, 9.4 MB)

Visit

Register for the Art Tales pre-K school tour

Submit Student Work

Send images of your students' projects that follow these activities - email [email protected]

You may also like

A small child stands facing us on a sun-dappled path that runs up the center of a garden dominated by towering yellow and burnt-orange sunflowers in this loosely painted, vertical scene. The light comes from our right so long, sea-green and plum-purple shadows cross the peach-colored path. The path is wide at the bottom center of the canvas and narrows as it reaches the steps of a house, beyond the garden. Close to us, four blue and white porcelain urns line the path, separating it from the grassy banks to either side. The urns are filled with tall stems with coral-pink and cardinal-red flowers. The child stands about halfway back along the path, where the garden transitions from grass to the banks of tall sunflowers. A few strokes in front of the child could be a small dog. Behind the child, a woman and another child stand on the steps. The woman wears a cornflower-blue and white dress, while both children have bare legs and wear white clothes and yellow hats. All three have indistinct facial features and peach-colored skin. The house spans with width of the composition. It has an amethyst-purple roofline with two chimneys, and the petal-pink walls have mango-yellow highlights. Windows are covered with blue latticework. Above the house, fluffy white clouds float against a vibrant blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting at the lower right in dark blue, “Claude Monet 80.”

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Claude Monet

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Claude Monet’s painting The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to draw a garden, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Mary Cassatt

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Mary Cassatt's oil painting Little Girl in a Blue Armchair. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to paint your own quiet moment, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

This nearly square, abstract painting is filled with circles within circles, like nested rings, each of a single bright color against the ivory white of the canvas. Each ring is made up of a series of short, rectangular dashes, and some bands are narrower while others are a bit wider. The majority of the rings are crimson and brick red, and they are interspersed with bands of lapis blue, army green, and pale pink. One of two pumpkin-orange bands is the smallest, innermost ring at the center. There is one aqua-blue colored ring just inside a pale, shell-white ring, which is the first to get cropped by the edges of the canvas. A few red, green, and blue rings beyond the white band are only seen at the corners of the canvas.

Educational Resource:  Art Tales: Alma Thomas

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Alma Thomas’ painting Pansies in Washington. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to create a color square, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.