Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art
“I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – These are some of O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating Georgia O’Keeffe’s Flower Drawings. Can you tell?
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. Georgia O’Keeffe
Life Imitates Art: When I saw this assignment, the first thought that popped into my head was Nature; specifically Flowers and Georgia O’Keeffe. Georgia Totto O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American artist best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes and recognized as the “Mother of American modernism.” I’ve always loved O’Keeffe’s large collection of beautiful artwork she created with flowers; especially Irises, roses, and a wide variety of lilies. A few years ago, when I visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I had a wonderful time walking through the collections, admiring her drawings, and buying postcards/mini-booklets filled with her renditions of lilies, irises and other flowers. It was a memorable experience that has stayed with me; mainly because her keen eye for detail and sense of form and color dazzled all of us who gathered to enjoy her collections. Above, I have gathered nine of her flower drawings and tried to match/imitate them with nine photos of same or similar flowers I took myself. We can imitate without copying and I think the outcome isn’t bad. What do you think?
“Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – These are some of O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating Georgia O’Keeffe’s Flower Drawings. Can you tell?
The large ‘White Flower’ [she painted in 1929] with the golden heart is something I have to say about White – quite different from what White has been meaning to me. Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is painted large to convey to you my experience of the flower – and what is my experience of the flower if it is not color. Georgia O’Keeffe
Something you might not know about the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is that it houses a collection of over 3,000 works of art that includes the works of other artists too. It holds over 1,000 works by O’Keeffe and is considered the “largest repository of her work available to the public in a single institution.” While I focused on her iconic drawings/collection of flowers for this post, her body of work, from 1901 to 1984, included beautiful drawings on a wide range of subjects from bleached desert skulls to nudes, landscapes, cityscapes, still lifes, and abstractions. I would love to go back to Santa Fe again and spend more time at the Museum. It is a treat that will satisfy the artist in you and might even fuel your muse to come up with some new ideas. For now, we can imitate to our heart’s content.
Valentine’s Day Collage: Have A Happy Valentine’s Day filled with love, flowers and chocolates!
Have a Very Happy Valentine’s Day filled with flowers, chocolates and love! <3
More Below!
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way… things I had no words for.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – These are some of O’Keeffe’s Florals
Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art – Imitating Georgia O’Keeffe’s Flower Drawings. Can you tell?
I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” Georgia O’Keeffe
I know I cannot paint a flower. I can not paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint color I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time. Georgia O’Keeffe
I hope you enjoyed your walk with me through my visual garden of blooms. Do come back soon. Thank you!
What are your thoughts? What fabulous life imitating art examples did you find? Did you enjoy the search? Do share?
My fellow bloggers were equally creative with their selections. Check out how others interpreted the theme below.
This post was inspired by a prompt from WP Daily Post: Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art Artists are inspired by and capture the world around us: sculptors immortalize people with statues; painters record events in their masterpieces. What about the other way around? For this week’s theme, find inspiration in a piece of art, and go further: imitate it.
Here are some ideas:
Reenact a painting. Need inspiration? Just google “American Gothic remake.”
Take a new version of one of your photos. Re-create your own work. Same subject, same scene, same angle. (In your post, show or link to the original one!)
Imitate a sculpture
Positive Motivation Tip: Blooms are beautiful both in nature and in art. They bring color and cheer to our lives; treat yourself this Valentine’s weekend!
More Weekly Photo Challenge Posts
PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: Some Photos from my Personal Collection AND Some from Georgia O’Keeffe – via the O’Keeffe Museum
Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet
Beautiful flowers. Love how you match each painting with a photo of the same flower. Now I am looking forward to spring and the blooming of flowers in my yard.
Thank you! I love the Self portrait your son created; it is remarkably exact. 🙂
I love Georgia O’Keefe prints, I have the Black Iris one hanging in my house.
Fantastic! That is an iconic and hugely popular one.
I love looking at the flowers when I am out walking. They are so pretty.
And very uplifting too. 🙂
I am a flower and nature lover these pictures are so pretty I would hang something like this in my living room =)
Oh that is so kind… I will put together some photos for sale. Thank you!
All of your flowers are so pretty! I absolutely love painting flowers… great post!
Thank you! The photos are mine and the paintings are by Georgia O’Keeffe.
Happy Valentines day! Such a beautiful flowers and great quotes for this day
Happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours too! 🙂
Such lovely collection of flowers. I enjoyed the walk through the garden of your beautiful flowers.
You are so kind. Thank you!
I fully agree that life imitates art! As A. Einstein said “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Thanks for sharing such an inspiring post!
Thank you and I like that quote. 🙂
O’Keefe is one of my favorites, so I like this take on the challenge.
Thank you ear one… she was a favorite choice. 🙂
This is so beautiful! I want one of each in a giant bouquet!
I wish many more for your birthday! <3 Happy Birthday and Happy Valentine's Day! 🙂
I just love Georgia O’Keeffe! She was such an interesting painter and her work is so intriguing.
Indeed. I agree… Love her work.
What a fun and thought-provoking challenge! I think I will try this myself. I can find so much inspiration through the lens and it would be amusing to find pieces of art to ‘imitate’.
I enjoyed this exercise a lot… I had several artists I would have loved to imitate but I didn’t have enough time. 🙂
Oh, nice inspirational ideas. I’ll be googling that soon. Wish I could paint that nice though, time to get motivated to paint! LOL.
Hahaha! You can paint what you enjoy… 🙂
Absolutely brilliant Eliz!
You’re brilliant! So kind of you Gilly! TY! <3
This is awesome! Beautiful beyond words! I love flowers and I wished I could paint! Thank you for the post!!!
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Georgia O’Keeffe made me laugh by saying she hates flowers but they are cheaper than models and don’t move. I have never seen a flower I didn’t like.
She might have said it in jest… She loved flowers.
Such a beautiful quote 🙂 I also love the flower picture. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Carmela!
We have a garden and I always love looking at the flowers. I believe they are God’s way of putting art in life form. They are truly attractive and wonderful to view.
True … and those colors keeps us all cheerful.
Such beautiful photos! My husband loves Georgia O’Keefe. We watched a movie about her life that was rather interesting.
Oh thank you Steph! She had a very fascinating life. 🙂
What you did was cool but was probably challenging to find the flower that’s almost the same as in the painting(s) of Georgia O’Keefe. She certainly has talent. I have always wanted to paint but I’m really not for it so I just take photos instead. Lol.
I have external drives with more photos that would have been a perfect match but, I was on a time crunch and went with what I had nearby. Glad you like the outcome. I love O’Keeffe’s body of work.
Such elegant photos and beautiful quotes! I really love flowers.
I love flowers too and chose Georgia’s work for that reason. I’m glad you’re pleased. TY! 🙂
Life imitates art… and art imitates life too… my favourite painting is the second photo, of the white tulip! It’s pure, simple and peaceful!
Which one? The three white flowers in my photo collage are: Iris, Morning Glory and Rosebuds… no tulips this time. 🙂
I’m loving all of the beauty flowers and on the perfect day.
Yes, I was juts thinking that it fits the day too. Happy Valentine’s Day! 🙂
Flowers are one of God’s greatest work of art because of their beauty, fragrance and colors. Always a joy to see, so calming and relaxing to be in a garden among flowers.
Oh yes! I agree wholeheartedly. They add color to our hearts and everything else. 🙂
As always, wonderful post…I love flowers..I have it everywhere in my house!
Oh I adore them too. 🙂