—Lesson plan—
About this time last year, I wrote about an
abstraction sequence I have my students create based on work by several famous artists. Picasso, Matisse, and Mondrian—like many other artists—took a subject and abstracted it over a number of pieces to see how far they could go making it more and more abstract. I was reminded of the lesson plan, yesterday, when I got to see a similar series of paintings by Georgia O'Keefe. In these paintings, O'Keefe starts out getting more graphic, but then she also crops in closer and closer to the subject until she eliminates most of the context for the shapes and colors.
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| Georgia O'Keefe, Jack-in-the-pulpit |
Her progression reminded me of a similar project I did as a first-year art student. There are three parts to it:
- Over five steps, move closer in to the subject.
- With each step, as you crop in, also simplify the shapes.
- With each step, use a relatively darker set of values so that the five steps reflect a full value range from high key to low key.
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| Abstraction Sequence by Brian Jacobs, 1985 |
This is a great project for students because it gives them a very
concrete objective. It's easier to be creative when we are constrained
by a certain number of panels and a distinct set of directions. Beyond
the constraints, we can come up with our own ideas. But the constraints
force us to focus.
The assignment also gives us context;
it's easier to understand your final color scheme when you've started
with a light set of values and worked darker. The same is true of the
simplification of the shapes: it's easier to abstract in smaller steps.
By the time we get to the last panel, we are organizing the painting in
terms of design, not realistic representation.
O'Keefe's series is similar. We do not have the first painting in her series. But if we compare
Jack-in-Pulpit – No. 2 to
Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, we can see that she is simplifying and hardening the edges. By
No. IV, some of the previously rounded forms have become more square. But also, at this point, she starts cropping in closer to the inside of the flower. When she gets to
No. VI, we sense that it references life, and from the context of the rest of the series, we know it is the spadix of the flower. But now our focus is on pure form. Using O'Keefe as a model, students can create their own progression to learn about abstraction as well as color and value.
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| CR 716 Jack-in-Pulpit – No. 2, 1930 |
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| CR 717 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, 1930 |
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| CR 718 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930 |
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| CR 719 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 5, 1930 |
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| CR 720 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI, 1930 |
One of my mentors always used to say,
make small changes. He meant that we should advance our style and work through our ideas by making a number of works that are each slightly more developed toward the goal than the one before. This assignment is good preparation for that kind of practice. In addition, the relatively arbitrary combining of objectives makes it easier to make connections and discoveries.
