Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers

Georgia O'Keeffe is known for her over sized flower paintings and this project can be used to introduce her work to your students.  Show lots of images of her work and different types of flowers to your students before you start or bring real flowers into the classroom for students to examine.  Also, you'll need to pick up some sturdy plastic reusable picnic plates for this project, one for each student to build their flower on.

Roll out a large slab of clay that is about 3/8ths of an inch thick and lay it over the plastic plate so that its completely covered.  Use a tool to cut off the excess around the edges of the plate.  Now use your excess clay to start shaping petals for your flower, start attaching them to the base piece from the outside edge working towards the middle.  Don't forget to scratch-to-attach them on well.  Keep layering in your petals until you have filled your plate and add texture or details on them as desired.  Next cut a circular hole in the middle of your flower and remove that piece of clay.  Now make a small pinch pot, turn it upside down and scratch-to attach it over the hole. You can add texture to the center of your flower.  HINT: If you don't remove the circular piece of clay from the base of your flower and you attach the pinch pot over the top, your flower can explode in the kiln because you are trapping air!  So don't forget that step!!  Also, you can hang your flower on the wall using that hole to hang on a nail.  Let your flower dry on the plate for support, it will shrink away from the plate and release as it dries. Then bisque fire, glaze and fire again to finish.

To display these flowers, I painted stems and leaves on the wall and hung the flowers above the stems, you can create a garden that never needs to be watered for your classroom this way!

!!!B CR8IV!!!