Art History: Georgia O'Keeffe

Today the children listened as I read My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winters. They were engrossed. We also glanced inside Georgia's Bones and Georgia O''Keeffe. After reading we looked at the gallery pictures and discussed the subjects she chose and the size she painted. One of her cloud paintings is 92" x 288"... WOW!

This weeks project was tissue paper paintings.

Supplies
paper
tissue paper
liquid starch
paint brush
small cups or egg carton cup into individual cups

Have children tear a circle out of tissue paper... bigger than a 1/2 dollar.
paint a circle of starch on the paper and place tissue circle on top, adding another coat of starch on top. The starch glues down the paper and sometimes (depending on tthe tissue) bleeds the color giving it a paintish quality.

Tear long petal pieces and repeat the starch painting process by placing them around the center circle. If you have a perfectionist who stresses out with the tearing... give them scissors.

flowers could be made more complex but with k-2 kiddos the radial design seems the easiest and most successful.
I stressed the difference between enough starch on the paper and gloopy, runny glops. I painted on the paper and asked them if it was gloopy and running off the page... Nooo. Is the tissue all sticking down.... yesss. I did this with a couple of pieces before I let them go on their own.