Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia o’keeffe

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My first art project this semester focused on the fabulous artist Georgia O'keeffe. According to Wikipedia she was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. 

I fell in love with the works of Georgia O'keeffe, and more than that, I fell in love with the artist herself. I found a quote by her that epitomizes how I want to live my life and inspired the works I created for this project. The quote stated, "I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." 

Painting with water color has a sort of freedom to it. The colors mix and swirl with reckless abandon, but only if you want them too. Watercolor can also have structure to it. I found this to be true in a number of Gorgia's paintings. 

When conceptualizing my pieces I decided to focus on the difference in style between two of the different themes Georgia focused her work on, flowers and city scapes. I noticed in Georgia's flower paintings she featured more bright vibrant colors and free flowing lines, while in her city scapes paintings she focused on more dark colors and more structured lines. The flowers seemed more free and expressive while the city scapes seemed more dark, controlled, and restrictive. 

Georgia O'Keeffe Flower Painting

Georgia O'Keeffee City Scape Painting

I related how these painting made me feel to my own life experiences. Narrow beauty standards in the world can sometimes make you feel restricted like you have to fit into a certain mold. Life may sometimes seem dark when you feel like your not free to express yourself and be who you want to be. 

That how I felt when I felt pressured to have long hair. I felt restricted by all the beauty routines I had to go through in order to make my hair grow.

However when I decided to just do me, and be awesome at that, I felt a sense of freedom that I've never felt before! The same sense of freedom I feel when I view Gloria's flower paintings and read the inspiring quotes she blessed the world with.

I had so much fun researching Gloria and creating my art projects. I learned a lot about water color that I will one day share with my students. For example you need the correct type of paper to paint water color pictures and sometimes you need to be patient when creating, and give one layer a chance to dry before you start on the next. However, in the same breath, water color comes with a type of freedom that allows colors to take on a mind of their own and mix together to create exciting new colors!

I can't wait to tell you about my next project!

Here is a great site to help you teach water color:
http://www.incredibleart.org/files/water.htm