
My First Grade students created these
Wonderfully Awesome Poppies
inspired by Miss Georgia herself.
The students first looked at the colors found in the poppies painting then started right away putting down large brushstrokes and vivid analogous colors of orange and reds.
Step One
Make a dot in the center and pull the paint out to the edge of the paper.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
those brushstrokes!
Let Dry!
Step Two- Day Two
Students cut out the shape of the flower leaving a little
border along the edge of the construction paper.
Next, students made the center of the poppy
with painted paper.
We used a lid from a container for the larger circle and drew a smaller circle inside. Then we cut out the larger circle and cut a fringe to the inner circle to create a ruffled texture.
Lastly, students added tissue to the center of their poppy.
They were so excited making their poppy become
3-dimensional.


My first graders loved making them!
Displayed in the hallway with the petals curved out makes these poppies really pop off the wall.
Materials
12 x 12 construction paper
Tempera paints-
Orange, Yellow and Reds
large brushes
painted paper and tissue paper.
25 Comments
Charmaine
October 7, 2013 at 11:46 pmStunning…and to think that first graders did them! Love the project!
Jayne Gammons
October 8, 2013 at 12:29 pmGORGEOUS! Love them. Jayne
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Elisa Santambrogio
October 8, 2013 at 8:47 pmwow! beautiful flowers;)
Elisabeth Wilder
October 20, 2013 at 5:26 pmI am doing this with my 1st grades and they love it! I am excited to see how they all turn out!
Paint with Karen
September 18, 2014 at 7:52 pmAbsolutely beautiful! This is a must try lesson!
asor
April 27, 2015 at 10:28 amshape of the flower leaving a little border along the edge of the construction paper, so beautiful.
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Alison Lewis
February 16, 2016 at 3:54 pmI can't wait to do these for Veteran's Day next year!
Sherry
May 16, 2016 at 12:45 pmI cannot see the pictures any more… I was going to have my Firsties do this art project but I can’t see any images any longer!! HELp!!!
Laura
May 17, 2016 at 8:04 pmI fixed the link 🙂
Barb
October 26, 2016 at 12:35 amThose are lovely!
Nicole Adams
February 15, 2017 at 4:00 pmIt seems like the images are broken again!
Laura
February 16, 2017 at 8:27 amHmmm, They are displaying fine on our end. Maybe try a different browser 🙂
Andi
March 15, 2017 at 12:41 pmLaura, can’t wait to do this project. A couple of questions:
1) Did you do painted paper for the middle circles? In one photo it looks like gray construction paper, and in others it looks like painted paper.
2) How large are the two lids/circles for the middle, in diameter, approximately? Hard to tell from the photo
Thanks for a great project.
Andi
Palo Alto Art Specialist
Laura
March 15, 2017 at 5:42 pmHi Andi, to answer you questions, 1. Yes we used previously painted paper. Black and white paint on gray construction paper. 2. The circles were lids from butter containers, the outer one is about 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter, the smaller on about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter. The flowers were painted on 12 x 12 red, peach and orange Tru- Ray construction paper. Thanks for asking. Have fun creating and let me know how they turned out.
Andi
March 15, 2017 at 6:20 pmThanks so much. I’m prepping as I write this!
Andi
March 15, 2017 at 12:55 pmPS: I also notice that on the first picture it seems you had them paint on hot pink construction paper, and on others it looks like it was white. Do you have a recommendation on what color/s background works best? many thanks.
Andi
Melanie Chedore
November 5, 2017 at 9:35 pmLove it- question- you painted yellow, orange and red onto red paper? or white paper?
Laura
November 6, 2017 at 7:32 pmHi Melanie,
We used orange and yellow paint on red paper. 🙂
Melanie Chedore
November 6, 2017 at 8:55 pmThanks! I started before your anser.. we used red, yellow, and ornage (and studetns asked for clack adn white too) on red or fuschia paper. It’s looking great!!
Melanie Chedore
November 6, 2017 at 8:55 pmThanks! I started before your answer.. we used red, yellow, and ornage (and studetns asked for clack adn white too) on red or fuschia paper. It’s looking great!!
Georgia O’Keeffe Poppy Flower – Elementary Art Lab
June 5, 2018 at 1:40 pm[…] art projects leading up to the field trip. I also got this lesson idea from another art teacher at Painted Paper Artblog (FYI – this is an amazing resource for art […]
Susan L
August 4, 2019 at 8:25 pmI love this! Thanks for the great project. I want to try it with my first graders this year.
Sharon Massey
December 3, 2020 at 1:52 pmWhat a wonderful way to help children learn to love art!
Lori Phillips
May 4, 2021 at 5:08 pmHow did you prep the black tissue paper for the centers? small square then fringe? Didn’t see this in your lesson plan. Thanks so much. Hoping to teach this soon!
Laura
May 4, 2021 at 7:45 pmWe used some small square pieces of black tissue paper.