Georgia O'Keefe

Students learned about the work of O'Keefe and while we did look at and discuss the enlarged flower paintings she did, I thought it would be fun to focus on her cityscapes and how she captured light in these paintings.  Students did a mixed media project which included a watercolor background and printmaking project over it. This took two class periods to complete, as most of my projects do. Lots of fun! Students were very creative in their use of building design and some included mountain ranges.

Winslow Homer

I love Winslow Homer's coastal scenes and genre painting.  Students learned about his work and the importance of his use of watercolor as a medium for completed paintings.  Older students worked on painting a seascape of their own in watercolor learning several techniques: wet in wet, wet on dry, glazing, and more.They also did all their own color mixing with a Prang palette!

Younger students worked on a simpler version of this painting while still learning these same watercolor techniques and a wax resist. Some of the students chose a moonscape while others did a sunset.

Louis Comfort Tiffany

Students viewed Louis Comfort Tiffany's exquisite stained glass and we talked about his new ideas for imbedding the glass with color and making it look like a painting with depth.  The project we did looks like a stained glass piece but used simple materials such as stained glass patterns, clear transparencies, foil, and permanent markers.  I used this as an opportunity to teach color theory as well.  Big wow factor with these and huge success rate!

Begin with your paper and tape it to the table, then tape a clear transparency over it.

Students color with permanent marker. They remove it from the table and glue crinkled foil behind it.

This student used the smudging of the black sharpie to her advantage by allowing it to blend with her orange marker creating value...love it!

Nice touch with the pink markings in the center. Beautiful.