Still Life with Students

Art

Students learn about different artistic styles by viewing different still life paintings of flowers. Then they will try to imitate the style of their choosing.

What You Need

Access to Internet art or art reference books
Flowers (real or artificial)
Vase
Paints, paintbrushes, water; crayons; colored pencils; or other tools of your choice

What to Do

Explain that a "still life" painting is a painting of inanimate objects (for example, flowers, fruit, books).
Show students different works of art (see suggestions below). Ask students what all of these works of art have in common. They all depict flowers. Ask students what differences they can find. Mondrian's flower is very detailed and realistic; Warhol's flowers are bright and not very detailed; van Gogh's flowers have softer colors and are more realistic; Martin's painting is not a realistic depiction of a flower; O'Keeffe's flowers are bright and take up the whole canvas.
Display a vase of flowers.
Distribute art supplies and instruct students to draw or paint the flowers, imitating the style of one of the artworks discussed by the class.
When finished, have students share their art with the class. Students can guess which style one another imitated. Ask students to explain why they chose the style they did.
If you'd like, create a bulletin board for the students' artwork.

Teaching Options

Have a discussion about the different emotions that the paintings could make a person feel. Which paintings would make one feel happy, peaceful, or excited? How do students imagine the artist was feeling when he or she painted the still life?
Instead of still lifes of flowers, try still lifes of fruit or books.

Internet Resources

Piet Mondrian, Chrysanthemum
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_112_12.html

Andy Warhol, Flowers
http://www.artdirectgallery.com/andy_warhol_flower's.htm

Agnes Martin, White Flower
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_103_1.html

Vincent van Gogh, Basket with Pansies on a Table
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/collection/catalog/vgmpainting.asp?ARTID=99&LANGID=0&SEL=1&PERIOD=2&SORT=0

Georgia O'Keeffe, Oriental Poppies
http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/environ/okeeffe5.html