Art Lesson w/ Ms. Jennifer: Let’s Create an Abstract Paint Mosaic like Alma Woodsey Thomas
About the Artist:
“Alma Woodsey Thomas developed her signature style—large, abstract paintings filled with dense, irregular patterns of bright colors—in her 70s.
Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia, the oldest of four girls. In 1907, her family moved to Washington, D.C., seeking relief from the racial violence in the South. Though segregated, the nation’s capital still offered more opportunities for African Americans than most cities in those years.
As a girl, Thomas dreamed of being an architect and building bridges, but there were few women architects a century ago. Instead, she attended Howard University, becoming its first fine arts graduate in 1924. In 1924, Thomas began a 35 year career teaching art at a D.C. junior high school. She was devoted to her students and organized art clubs, lectures, and student exhibitions for them. Teaching allowed her to support herself while pursuing her own painting part-time.
Thomas’ early art was realistic, though her Howard professors Loïs Mailou Jones and James V. Herring challenged her to experiment with abstraction. When she retired from teaching and was able to concentrate on art full-time, Thomas finally developed her signature style.
She debuted her abstract work in an exhibition at Howard 1966, at the age of 75. Thomas’ abstractions have been compared with Byzantine mosaics, the Pointillist technique of Georges Seurat, and the paintings of the Washington Color School, yet her work is quite distinctive.
Thomas became an important role model for women, African Americans, and older artists. She was the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, and she exhibited her paintings at the White House three times.”
-National Museum of Women in the Arts
Art Creation Guidance
Materials:
Square paper
Pencil and circle tracer (optional)
Flat brushes - small and medium
Liquid tempera, watercolor, craft, or acrylic paints
Paper towel and water to clean brushes
Follow along with Ms. Jennifer by watching this video:
Directions:
To begin, make your paper a square, then find the center.
Trace a small circle lightly with pencil in the center of the page as a guide.
Make your first color a circle of paint in the very center.
Wipe your brush, get a new color or paint, and begin making square dash marks around the first circle.
Continue by changing color for each concentric circle. Use a larger brush if desired. Custom mix your own shades of color.
Fill the page with colorful circles.
Next time, try drawing a simple landscape with a horizon, mountain, hill, and sky, then filling the shapes with dashes of color as in the Alma Woodsey Thomas painting “Apollo 12 Splash Down.”
Yay! You did it! I can’t wait to see your creations!
Please don't forget to email your artwork to Jennifer@BlowingRockMuseum.org to be shared in our Youth Gallery. We will be printing selections of Youth Artwork submitted digitally, and framing them in our new Youth Gallery on the 2nd floor of BRAHM.
And if you find value in our mission to bring art enrichment to community students through programs such as Young at Art, please consider supporting BRAHM by donating or joining as a member.
Did you know that a membership at the FAMILY LEVEL ($75) and above gives you FREE access to our weekly youth art classes?