Art Inspiration - Georgia O'Keefe Watercolor Resist Art

The next art lesson that Toddler Approved posted was learning about Georgia O'Keefe and her flower paintings. They are just stunning! I'd never heard about her. And it was cool that this was the first female artist that we were looking at.

We looked a few flowers from in the garden (there weren't too many being autumn but we found a few) and then watched a video about Georgia O'Keefe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=vyRzUii-pSc&feature=emb_logo

Next up we watched a video about how to draw and paint the flowers. It was cool to see the steps break down and really helped the kids to not feel overwhelmed about how to draw a flower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIhlnqR45FM

I went and found my oil pastels that were in the cupboard upstairs and we started our flowers. Pretty easy when you break it down. First start with a blob around the middle of your paper. Then draw some squiggly lines out to the end of the page. Use lead pencil first to draw the outline, then go over with a oil pastel.

Then use water colours to paint the flower. Start at the centre and paint out to get the texture of the petals. Use some different colours to get the different tones of the flower petals too. Then paint the centre of the flower to finish.

Eliza made a rainbow flower

Alexander didn't paint from the centre but enjoyed making his own flower in his own way.

When Eliza started using very different colours to paint the inside of the flower I wondered what on earth she was doing.

But it really made her flower stand out! Well done baby girl!

Daniel wasn't as into this artwork as other ones but he did still enjoy painting it but stuck with using the same colour.

I forgot to take a photo of the finish artworks but they looked cool. 

This was the end of the set artworks on Toddler Approved. Again, I am so grateful that they posted them as it pushed me out of my comfort zone to do something that was messy and fun. It also showed me that my kids quite like learning about artists, not just doing artworks, and I found it really interesting too to learn about the different artists and their back story. It taught me that my kids do love to paint and I should really try and get the paints out more! It also reminded me that we have waterpaints and this is a great option when the kids want to do some painting but I don't feel like setting up the whole amount of paint pots, and painting space and stressing about the possible mess. It also taught me that we can use bins, tables, etc. as easels. You don't need to have the real things to be able to do painting outside. And it taught me that you can use masking tape that has lost some of its stickiness to hold up the paper and easily pull it off. So a win win all around. 

In the next holidays I might let them do some more Jackson Pollock painting because that has been their favourite activity from the lot but I might also look to learn more about some artists and take them to the Art Gallery when it is safe to do so.