Zoom in Georgia O’Keeffe Flowers

What is characteristic of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers?

They are magnified  https://i1.wp.com/www.sptimes.com/2007/08/19/images/xlarge/Latitud_lat_mfa_1900517.jpg



seen close up

To quote Georgia,

” When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moments.  I want to give that world to someone else.  Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower”.

This week I wanted to do a painting activity based on flowers “O’Keeffe style” and ~

Zoom in on a flower

Look for a flower image on Google images:

  1. Type in the type of flower you want and right-click the image to “open on a new tab“.
  2. Click “View full-size
  3. Right-click on the image and select “Save image as“.
  4. A pop-up menu opens.  Select your “My Pictures” folder make a new folder.  Name it “Flowers” and save the image.  Rename your image if needed.

Now use Picasa 3 to edit your flower image:

Picasa has a wonderful editing option which turns an image into a pencil sketch.  Here’s how to:

  1. Open your saved image.
  2. Click “File” and select “Save a Copy“.  Picasa saves your original image.
  3. Crop the image – select the focused area.  Your flower should touch (and even go off) all the sides of the frame. 
  4. Now select the “blue” paintbrush Picasa edit button for “even more fun and useful image processing” and click “Pencil Sketch” option.
  5. Fiddle with the slide settings to create a clear, sharp outline image with some shadows.
  6. Print” and select “Full Page” and you will have a full-page pencil outline of your flower.
  7. Print the original color image as a smaller size printout to use as your reference while you paint.

Have fun painting:

Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting are beautifully shaded.  Her petals range in tone from light to dark shading.  Look at the original images of the flower to see the main color with its light and dark tones and shades.

  1. We used acrylic paints and a paint tray.
  2. Select and pour a medium-sized blob of your main color and then a smaller blob of white and a tiny dot of black paint.
  3. Create a light mix of color by adding white and a dark mix of color by touching a tiny bit of black to your color.  Now there should be white, light mix, pure color, dark mix and black paint blobs on the paint tray.
  4. I prefer to start with the dark shadows and work lighter and lighter till I highlight the lightest areas with white.  It doesn’t really matter.  Just try keep the colors from all mixing together to become a greyish-medium-color on the page.  Perhaps wipe the brush off on some toilet paper as you take a new shade and work with a clean brush and clean water.
  5. Add fine details with thin brush.
  6. Add final highlights with white to make the light areas really stand out.
  7. Paint the background.

 8. Finish off with a frame.  You can use this one ~ Georgia O’Keeffe Painting Frame

Hang the pictures in your gallery and enjoy!


10 thoughts on “Zoom in Georgia O’Keeffe Flowers

  1. Thank you so much for this idea. We got back to school today, and sure enough this was our art project today, I couldnt resist.:)


  2. You are made of awesome! I am teaching a lesson on painting O’Keeffe flowers next week and could not figure out how to turn her paintings into sketches. Thank you so much for this tutorial!


  3. Pingback: Inspiration from the Greats: Women Artists | Brain Popcorn

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