In this unit students were taught about Georgia O'Keeffe and her modernist style of experimenting with size and abstraction. After looking at several of her works, like the Red Hills and Bones, and Two Pink Shells, we saw how she broke with tradition and fooled the eye with PERSPECTIVE as well as used POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SPACE to create ASYMMETRICAL BALANCE and very interesting compositions.

Red Hills and Bones, 1941

 

Two Pink Shells, 1937

Pelvis IV, 1944

Students used a grid technique to focus their image of a either photo or an O'Keeffe painting. They then broke down their square flower image into four equal squares that they can replicate on their own square paper.

Red Canna, 1919

Students were shown how a flower can be ABSTRACTED by focusing on a part of it so much so that the origins are almost lost in the composition. The above picture of the Pelvis IV and the Red Canna to the left are great examples of this abstraction.

Pretty amazing drawings!

The technique of breaking down the image into simple lines and shapes and using the 'clues' that are on the edges of the squares made the work easier.

Learning how to color what you see and blend with the pastels worked out really well.

Apple blossoms

Neat abstraction!

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