After my first two years teaching art a few years ago, I had to turn in a portfolio to the state to determine whether I received a "Proficient Practitioner" teaching license or not. Until then, I had a probationary license. (All new teachers needed to go through this process.) In my portfolio, I was to select one grade level to showcase, so I chose fourth grade and had them complete these gorgeous Georgia O'Keeffe inspired paintings.
After viewing and discussing the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, the students got to work on their paintings. For the drawing part of this assignment, I let the students choose to draw inspiration from some silk plants I had around the room, or look at images of flowers. Each student was given a viewfinder so that their eyes could "zoom in" on one section of the plant or photograph. They then drew what they saw through the viewfinder on watercolor paper, but not focusing so much on the tiny details of the plant.
Next, they traced over their lightly drawn pencil lines with regular school glue. While waiting for the glue to dry, we discussed color families, specifically warm and cool colors. The students chose one color family for their paintings. Once the glue was dry, I demonstrated a wet-on-wet watercolor painting technique so that they could mix and blend colors a little easier. (The color in these pictures are a little off, so unfortunately you can't see the color blending easily.)
I don't know if this next step was completely necessary, but I had the students trace both sides of the glue line with a thin sharpie marker. I think that it certainly helped some of the artwork look finished and complete.
