Artist/Picture Study - Georgia O'Keefe

One of the parts of homeschooling that we enjoy is the artist/picture study. Sophia and Olivia focused on Georgia O'Keefe and six of her pieces. She is well-known for her paintings of flowers, so we were surprised to see that there was a broader history and images represented in her work. 

Below are six images that the girls studied for a period of time; and what they remembered about the pictures when they weren't in front of them and had to recall details about each one.

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Red Canna, 1924

Sophia remembered: 
- I really like this picture and how she blended the colors. One part is vivid red and further down is completely white.
- I like the purple the best. There's enough darker color to make it look purple, but it almost looks pink.
- I like the pink because she can blend it in and make it look red.
- The colors are all warm.
- I think the main focus is the colors not the flower because the lines are softened.
- The colors she used were red, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and white...all blended together.

Olivia remembered:
- I see red. The other pictures have more colors than this one.
- There's yellow in it.
- There's lots of different shades of colors.
- Out of all the colors, I think the red stands out the most with yellow and pink.
- There's no dark colors on the flower.

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Blue and Green Music, 1919.

Sophia remembered:
- I really like this picture because it flows across the page.
- The picture she did she captured the smooth motion - it looked like water running over rocks.
- She never used white in the picture, but added a light blue on top.
- She used a lot of cool colors - blue, green, and teal.
- I like how she could capture the one side with pale blue and then she could blend it into different colors - blue, then teal, and black.
- This is one of my favorite ones because I thought immediately of moving silk almost. It was very pretty.
- When I see it, it was named appropriately because it flows - like music, water, and how she was feeling one day.

Olivia remembered:
- I like the colors.
- I like it because it looks like the ocean.
- There are greens, white, and blues.
- It has a tinge of black in the picture.
- It's kind of all wavy.
- It's kind of my favorite picture, but not my favorite one.
- I like the blacks on the blues.
- I thought it looked like music because it was kind of wavy.

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My Shanty, Lake George, 1922.

Sophia remembered:
- The first thing I noticed when I looked at the shanty is that she painted it in a bight white. It stood out against the browns and grays of the picture.
- When I look into the distance, I see the mountains. It looks almost black. It looks like there's a little bit of dark blue.
- By the side of the shanty, there's a bush that's a jade-green in color. It looks mysterious.
- There's a branch that looks like an elephant trunk. It looks like a trunk spewing a little bit of green mist.
- I like the way she did the clouds. They're in a darker blue. Farther out, they are wispy.
- It's not my favorite picture, but not the worse I've seen.

Olivia remembered:
- I like how the tree branches are jetting out. It looks like a snake with an open mouth.
- I don't really like the color of the shed. It's a brownish-reddish color.
- I like how she did the clouds - kind of in a wavy pattern. They cover the sky just a hint.
- I like the blues and greens on the tree and the mountain.
- I like the color and how she did the roof of the shed and the open door.
- The window was square.
- The shed was a rectangle.
- There are big and small shrubs around the shed.
- There are two or three trees in the picture.

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Radiator Building - Night, New York, 1921.

Sophia remembered:
- It wasn't like a lot of her other pictures. It was sharp, clean and something you'd see in a children's book.
- There's a wisp of smoke coming out from one of the buildings. As it gets higher up, it gets thicker.
- There's the search lights. The kind like if you'll pull a heist and the search lights come on. When the light mingles with the smoke it turns it to a teal color.
- At the bottom of the building, there are 5, 6, or 7 orb things - like a flashlight. They're strange.
- On the building, you can see lights on. Half are lit up and the others aren't so it's pitch black. It gives the impression that it's a very big building and lots of people are in it.
- Around the radiator building there were lots of smaller buildings.
- There are lots of areas that are pitch black. It's like 1:00 in the morning.

Olivia remembered:
- I like it because there's a red streak on the edge of the picture that's cool.
- I like how in the building you can see people standing by the window (or the shadow of them).
- I like some of the windows - you can't see the building. If you look carefully, you can see the top of the building.
- The colors in the picture are whitish-red, gray, black, a tinge of red - or a red stripe, and a little bit of yellow.
- I like how she used gray for the top of the building. It looks like a real building in New York.
- There was blue at the top of one building

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Ram's Head - White Hollyhock - Hills, 1935

Sophia remembered:
- The picture seemed dark and foreboding.
- The horses on the ram's head extend out into the dark sky.
- I like the hills because she did them in sand. It looks like clay.
- I like the flower. It wasn't intricate. It was simple and nice.
- The horns were longer than normal ram's horns.
- The predominant color in the hills was red.

Olivia remembered:
- I like how she did the hills and the clouds.
- I like how she did the little trees and the flower on the ram's skull.
- I like how she did the skull because it looks real.
- She used a lot of dark colors - gray, darkish yellow, and red.
- The horns were cool. They were sharp.
- The flower was white and yellow.

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Grey Hills, 1942.

Sophia remembered:
- This isn't one of my favorite ones. There's not a lot to see.
- The top of the mountain or hill looks like it has been spray painted and it's not real.
- She painted a few flowers at the bottom. They were a goldish-yellow color. There were a few a little higher up. They looked out of place because of all the rock.
- She did around the middle of the hill: brown at the bottom, yellowish-orange with a mild red, then white with a little bit of grown and gray.
- There are big boulders that are roundish in shape.

Olivia remembered:
- I like the mountain. It's kind of all black and there's only a few shrubs growing somewhere below that.
- I like how she did the different layers of gray, a tinge of red, sandstone, and then black rock.
- I like how she did the sky - it's all one color. The mountain touches the sky.
- The flowers are gold - like we have here. They are where the gray rocks end.
- I think this is my favorite one because it is so pretty. I like the rocks and how they are.
- I like how she did where the mountain start - they jut out like fingers.

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