Pretty poppies art project inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe
You will need: coffee filters, paint, ink or food colouring, water, pipe cleaners
Georgia O’Keeffe painted nature in a way that showed how it made her feel. She is best known for her depiction of flowers and desert landscapes. In the 1920s, she became the first female artist to gain respect in New York’s art world. Her unique and new way of painting nature, simplifying its shapes and forms, played an important part in the development of modern art in America. Have a look at some of her glorious flowers, for example Oriental Poppies or ‘Jimson Weed, White Flower no 1.
- Coffee filters are a brilliant medium to create art on – there are many different shapes and sizes too to experiment with! Use watery paints, or inks (or even food colouring!) for the best effect as the filter paper soaks up the liquid paint and allows it to spread beautifully!
- Put paint/ink/food colouring in a bowl with a little water.
- Take 4 or 5 coffee filters (still stuck together), fold in half and in half again, then hold them in the dyed/paint water for a few seconds. It’s so fun to watch the colour move up the coffee filter before your eyes! At this point, you can still add more paint if you find that the colour isn’t as saturated as you want.
- Drape the filters over plastic cups to dry, separately. Then glue them together (only at the centre) and add some black paint to the middle – ta da a beautiful painted poppy!
- You could stick these to a big piece of paper, or make them into ‘real’ flowers by adding pip cleaners as stems!
