I was amazed to experience the beautiful nuances when I encountered my 1st Alma Woodsey Thomas painting in person. I had seen tiny shrunken down versions of her art before but so many subtleties were completely lost in translation.

My first “live” Alma Thomas painting sighting, Dogwood Display II at the New Orleans Museum of Art, captivated me.

Her art felt like she found the essence of the backbeat and built her paintings around it. Frequently, her painted backgrounds quietly but persistently drove her art in a way I hadn’t seen before. Personally experiencing her backgrounds playing with her foregrounds made me understand what was a uniquely talented artist she was.

We studied many of her paintings together as a class, and we always started those discussions with her backgrounds first. That’s how we approached our own Alma-inspired paintings also. We learned how to create tints of colors and painted a soft pastel background.

After our backgrounds were complete and dry, we found a starting place for our foregrounds through a cut construction paper shape. We then painted full-strength hues around our chosen shapes in broken brushstrokes that let the background shine through.

This project helped me share with my students the joy her paintings bring. She has the historical significance of being the first ever graduate of Howard University’s Fine Art Department, setting the bar incredibly high. In addition to that, she also taught middle school art for 35 years. 35 years of middle schoolers! All hail the queen.