Color Wheel

Title:  Color Wheel

Grade: 1

Art Discipline: Visual Arts

Time Frame: 40 Minutes

Lesson Overview: Students create their own color wheel using primary colors to create secondary colors.

GLO(s):   2. Community Contributor; 4. Quality Work

Arts Benchmark: How the Arts are Organized – FA.1.1.4: Demonstrates how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors.

Rubric based on Arts Benchmark:

Advanced

Proficient

Partially Proficient

Novice

Demonstrates how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors with accuracy.

Demonstrates how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors with no significant errors.

Demonstrates how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors few significant errors.

Demonstrates how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors with many significant errors.

Key Arts Vocabulary: secondary colors (orange, green, violet); mixing

Classroom Set Up: Gathered in a circle to view art prints. Regular seating for color wheel activity.

Materials & Equipment needed:

Color wheel (teacher made sample)

Each student needs:

• paper plate
• palette with tempera paint in primary colors (blue, red, yellow)
• water container
• (1) 9x12 card stock paper (practice paper)
• paint brush
• paper towel (for blotting paint brush)

Suggested art prints:   Georgia O'Keeffe, Poppy; Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers. Use a print that demonstrates the use of color and color mixing.

Teacher Tips:

• Use small paper plates as paint palettes. Place a quarter-sized dot of each color on the plate. Each child can receive their own palette or they can share with a partner.
• Prep the palettes and water containers before the activity.
• Designate student helpers to empty water containers, wash brushes, and collect paint palettes.
• Tell students that mixing all the primary colors together create the color brown. Let them create brown after creating their color wheel.

10

Look at the print in front of you and pay close attention to the artist’s use of colors. Do you see primary colors - reds, blues, and yellows? They are called primary colors because primary means first. They are the first colors and mixing them makes other colors.

Do you see oranges, greens, and purples? We also call purple violet. These are made by mixing two primary colors, and are called the secondary colors. Where do you see mixing of colors in the print?

(Teacher note: Students go back to their desks, and supplies are passed out.)

20

A color wheel is a way to arrange colors and helps us learn how to mix to make other colors. You are going to learn how to paint a color wheel and mix primary colors to make secondary colors.

First, turn your plate over and write your name on the back.

Next, using a pencil, draw a large triangle on the front of your paper plate. 

Let's start by painting primary colors. Dip your brush in the water, and then dab it in the yellow paint.  Make a practice brush stroke anywhere on your practice paper.  Paint a yellow circle the size of a quarter at the top of your triangle.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.

Dip your brush in the water and dab it in the red paint.  Make a practice brush stroke anywhere on your practice paper.  At the bottom right point of your triangle paint a quarter-size red dot.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.

Dip your brush in the water and dab it in the blue paint.  Make a practice brush stroke anywhere on your practice paper.  At the bottom left point of your triangle paint a quarter-size blue dot.  Wash, wipe and blot your brush.  These are the primary colors:   yellow, red, blue. 

Let's mix secondary colors next.

On your practice paper make a big dot of yellow.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.  Add a small dot of red to the yellow.  What color do you get? (orange).  Paint an orange practice brush stroke on your paper, then an orange dot between the yellow and the red circles on your plate. Make your dots the same “quarter” size.

On your practice paper make a big dot of red.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.  Add a small dot of blue to the red. What color do you get? (purple or violet).  Paint a violet practice brush stroke on your paper, then a violet dot between the red and the blue on your plate.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.

On your paper make a big dot of yellow.  Wash, wipe, and blot your brush.  Add a small dot of blue to the yellow. What color do you get? (green).  Paint a green practice brush stroke on your paper, then a green dot between the blue and the yellow circles on your plate.

When you are finished, clean up your work area, and leave your color wheel at your desk. We will do a gallery walk to see all of the color wheels.

10

What happens when you mix two primary colors? Can artists create works with lots of different colors just by using primary colors? How? Do you think there are other colors you could make by mixing the colors on your color wheel?

Responding (Questions to ask students before, during, or after an activity in the lesson to elicit their thinking about their own work or about work they are studying):

Step 1: Describe

Step 2: Interpret

Step 3: Evaluate

What happens when you mix two primary colors?

 If you only had primary colors, would you be able to create a painting that had other colors?

Do you think there are other colors you could make by blending the colors on your color wheel?