Suzanne+M.

__ Georgia O’ Keefe __

**picture from:** http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?startat=/getposter.asp&APNum=1248303&CID=B639AA9270C44A7D9F890045B5573F17&PPID=1&Search=keeffe&f=t&FindID=0&P=3&PP=13&sortby=PD&c=c&page=3 Georgia O’Keefe was born on November 15, 1887 and died on March 6, 1986. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She grew up on a farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She was the second of seven children. Georgia would take art lessons at home. The teachers always knew that she had a special gift.

O’Keefe was an expressionistic artist, but also she had her own artistic style. Expressionistic painters use their own inner experiences and emotion. Expressionistic painting can be seen in any time period. She liked to paint with oils paints on canvas or pastels on paper. Georgia enjoyed painting pictures of flowers, landscapes, and bones. She would play with colors and light with in the paintings. She got her ideas of what to paint from life experiencesand from places she lived.

O’Keefe’s husband had some influence on her style. His name was Alfred Stieglitz. He was a photographer, and told Georgia she should have her own kind of style. Other such as John Martin, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Paul Strand, Edward Steichen also influenced her. As soon as Georgia graduated high school she was determined to be an artist. She got training from the Art Institute of Chicago school, the Art Students League of New York, the University of Virginia, and Colombia University’s Teachers College in New York. She also taught at some schools. She taught at elementary schools, high schools, and colleges in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina.

I named my drawing Stones because it looks like stones and Georgia O’Keeffe was inspired by the Ranchos Church, New Mexico. I tried to copy this painting exactly. I used oil pastels to draw this. This project was fun and easy I think. I will tell you the steps I took to make this drawing successful and what inspired me to do this photo. The many photos of flowers Georgia O’Keeffe has painted and drew inspired me. I was going to draw a flower but when I found out that she does outdoor landmarks and places. When I came across this photo that she took, I knew it would help me relax and so I did it. I think that the feeling that I was trying to send to the reader is that I you think art is boring you should try it because before I started it I thought it was boring but now I love it and it helps me relax. Also if you really like a picture that you want to draw and it looks hard to draw you should try it, it might be easy and you might like it. This project sounded hard to me but it is kind of easy and I like it. I love to look at outdoor items and listen to the sound of birds and other noises, so that is why I picked this photo. I used oil pastels to complete this project. Some techniques I used was that I tried to get the colors the same and make it look like real stones by shading and combining some colors. My drawing is from Georgia O’Keeffe and I named it stones because they look like stones. This project was fun and easy for me I liked it, I think it was a good thing for me because it helped me relax and help me like art more. I used oil pastels to complete this project; I like to use oil pastels that is why I used them.