1st grade Poppy Paintings are right in the middle of the center overlap of the Venn diagram of some of my favorites. When you combine one of my favorite artists (Georgia O’Keeffe), one of my favorite colors (reddish orange), with one of my favorite flowers (poppies), you get this art project.

The 1st grade artists enjoy experiencing how red and yellow paint mix together to create a new color (poppy orange.)

We start by talking about red flowers. Then we talk about Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower paintings. We watch and discuss a stop motion video clip about her life and art.

Then I pass out the green square construction paper and squeeze some yellow and red liquid tempera paint right onto their squares. They paint their poppies.

Next, we cut them out leaving a construction paper border surrounding the poppies. They glue their poppies onto a black background.

Then they cut out a circle of black paper as the poppy center. They cut “fringe” on the outer edge of their circle centers and fold up the edges in an A/B pattern or at random.

I introduce them to the joys of hand stamping the medium green flower shapes and smaller black flower shapes. They love pushing the lever down and hearing the click that releases their new shapes. They glue the stamped flower shapes on and add a button or pompon as the seed pod. Voila, a poppy painting. Big thanks to Laura Lohmann at @paintedpaperart for creating the original project.