Elements of Art: Color

I must admit that color is my favorite Element of Art! Remember the Matisse quote? I'm all about color and creativity! Last week we learned about primary, secondary, tertiary, warm/cool, and complementary colors. Remember those black sheets of paper on the Matisse board? This is the board with our objectives on it for the week!

I think the kids had fun learning...but I think they had more fun making their color related projects. For my little ones (K-2nd) we read one of my favorites!

This wonderful little book is about 3 white (and curious!) mice who explore what happens when you mix certain colors together. From this book we learned that when you mix primary colors together, you get secondary colors. Although this book is an oldie, it is certainly still a goody! We also read one of my new favorites...

This book shows many different colors! What I enjoy about this book is that it teaches children that there are many different "hues" (a word we learned in class). In a box of 64 count Crayola crayons, you can find at least 3 different hues of red, blue, and yellow (remember those primary colors?). The idea that there can be more than one red or blue was the concept grasped by this book. Here is an example...

After reading these two, it was time for our project! Instead of painting (I tried with one 1st grade class and ended up with paint everywhere! Literally, a child got paint all over him and then cut a hole in his shirt to "remove" the paint. What a classic story...kids will be kids :)! ) we practiced our motor skills by tearing colored construction paper and gluing to our painters palette. We tried to glue at least 3 pieces of the same color paper on top of each other to give it that "gloopy/paint" look...did we succeed? Here are the artworks from Mrs. William's Kindergarten class....aren't they great?!

For my big kids (3rd-5th) I had something really special planned. I knew I wanted to have them mix their own primary color paints to get secondary, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it. After some thought (and kindness shown by the employees at Home Depot) I was able to get 350 paint sticks! Yes, 350!! I gave the students a dot of red, yellow and blue. From there they had to mix the primary colors to get secondary. Here is how they turned out...

Pretty cool, right? What I LOVED about this was that while each paint stick was different, they look like a unified whole when grouped together. I think it creates some unity within the school as well as pride within my students. It's an amazing feeling to see them walk by and say, "oh, I did one of those!"...I will never tire of hearing that. These kids are amazing and I can't wait to see what else we can do! 

This week we are moving on to Line, so stay tuned!