Kindergarten O'Keeffe Flowers

My kindergartners recently studied the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, who became famous for painting giant flowers. Next, my kindergartners painted their own giant flowers, using some techniques learned from O'Keeffe. First, the students painted the outline of the petals in a darker color, since O'Keeffe had shadows around the edges of her petals. This makes the flowers look more real. I told the students to make their flowers so big that they touch the top of the page and the bottom of the page. We started out with a dot in the middle, and added petals until the flower touched the top and bottom of the page. Some students chose to make huge petals, like a daisy, while others added small petals around and around until the flower looked similar to a carnation or rose. We added white to our paint to make the middles of the flowers lighter. Lastly, we added a few leaves around the flower. In O'Keeffe's painting White Flower on Red Earth, there are a few leaves around the edge. The students made green leaves, and we added some black to our green paint to make some veins in the leaves so they would look real.