My students tried a new lesson I came up with called, “Creative Color Wheels.” The idea is to create a circle using 12 symbols (like a clock) to organize primary, secondary and tertiary colors. One all of the symbols were filled in with their designated color (using only the primary colors to mix), then I had the students pick a secondary or a tertiary color. At this stage my intention was to show how color loses saturation by adding white or black, in our case white. The color saturation exercise was the segway to the next lesson, landscapes (color loses saturation going futher back into space). The final step was painting in the background with the complimentary (opposite) color of the previously chosen color. Since they all had the color wheel in front of them, they had to figure out what their complimentary color was. I did remind them that if the circle had 12 symbols, counting 6 away from that color would give them it’s compliment.
Here are my demonstration pieces using two different mediums.
Here are examples from my students.
Some of the students where very creative, and many of them use this as an opportunity to express their football patronage. Although this was only intended to be a quick color theory lesson, but I used three color wheels in two of our art shows.
After the lesson was complete, I still had color wheels on my mind. So, during a weekend I found some paint swatches that I’ve had for years. These inspired me to make a color wheel out of them. I brought it to school and fitted it to frame my classroom clock. My students loved it so much, I heard from many of them that they had starting making ones of their own at home. AND teaching their younger siblings about the color in the process! How excited I get when I know students are being creative and making artwork outside of school!
~ by florriebarnett on September 1, 2012.