Georgia O'Keefe Enlarged Flower Assignment

Art History Books are full of male artists, so I always enjoy when I can teach a lesson based around a woman as important as Georgia O'Keefe, the Mother of Modernist Painting. I love how she takes something as small as a flower and makes it so large that you have to take notice. For a spring-time appropriate assignment, we discussed O'Keefe's history and subjects before students each chose a flower to use as their subject. I'd originally wanted to make them choose a flower that was native to our state, but it soon became clear that they would work harder if it was a flower to which they felt a personal connection.

Many students used a print out of a flower, drew a grid on top of it in order to duplicate it on a large piece of paper (also with a grid). Oil pastel was the medium of choice for my students with low vision

Although for those who are blind, I drew their flower in hot glue, and then they used watercolor to fill in the shapes. Every student seemed to take a lot of pride in their finished product.

Fabric Drawings to Teach Value

If fabric studies were good enough for Leonardo DaVinci to do in the Renaissance, they're good enough for me to do in the classroom. The use of lights and darks, value, is required to draw fabric in a way that looks three dimensional. The deeper the fold in the fabric, the darker the value on the drawing.
In this drawing Leonardo uses a middle ground and saved the lightest value for the highlights.

Below are some examples of work from my students, who are visually impaired. A couple of them had to sit very close to the still life; others, had to take a picture to print or view on an iPad just a few inches from their face.

Here is the work of a student with even less vision. There are no specifics when it comes to value and fabric folds in this drawing.

Students with no vision would feel the still life, and I would help them mimic the folds in the fabric with wiki sticks, which they would then use as guidelines when adding the value.