Color Wheel Eyes

After exploring the color orange and making our pumpkin paintings, 3rd grade artists learned about the color wheel. Last year, as 2nd graders, they painted a color wheel with the three primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and three secondary colors (orange, green and violet). 

This year, we expanded to include six tertiary colors. Tertiary colors are combinations of primary and secondary colors. There are six tertiary colors: red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet. An easy way to remember these names is to put the primary color name before the secondary color. 

Students started by painting their primary colors, and then mixing their secondary colors. We thought about how to make the secondary color look different than the tertiary colors, and we remembered than when we were mixing different shades of orange, if you added more red it was darker, or a red-orange, and if you added more yellow it made it lighter, or yellow-orange. 

Once the color wheels dried, we transformed them into eyes through collage. First, we learned about two parts of the eye, the pupil and the iris. The pupil is the black circle in the center of the iris. It changes size, getting bigger or smaller, depending on the amount of light going through, to help us see. The iris is the colored circle around the pupil, and it works with the pupil as it changes size. 

After cutting out the color wheel, students drew an eye shape on white paper, placing the color wheel in the center to help create a lemon shape around it. Then students glued the white eye shape and color wheel on top of a background and used black paper to add details, like eyelashes and eyebrows. 

We discussed what shapes might work best for the eyelashes, and many students chose to cut long triangles, rectangles, and some students also curled the ends to lift off the paper. Below are some examples of our color wheel eye collages.

Jaylyn, 3rd grade (Monfette)

Jason, 3rd grade (Fletcher)

Zach, 3rd grade (Monfette)

Pirada, 3rd grade (Stone)

Dorie, 3rd grade (Lutz)

Iris, 3rd grade (Lutz)

Gabe, 3rd grade (Fletcher)

Elizabeth Murray Inspired Shapes & Patterns

1st grade artists learned about the difference between geometric and organic shapes, after looking at a variety of different shapes. We then looked at the art of Elizabeth Murray, looking at and discussing her use of shapes.

Elizabeth Murray, Do the Dance (2005)

We noticed that Murray uses both geometric and organic shapes in her work, and her shapes and colors are fun and playful. They reminded students of a variety of different things -- from train tracks to a dog to the inside of our bodies! Students made many different connections to the artwork they saw.

Elizabeth Murray, Bop (2002-03)

After looking at Murray's work and reviewing shapes, students began by painting 2 geometric shapes and 3 organic shapes using black paint. The following class, we reviewed primary and secondary colors and also delved back into color mixing. Students painted their geometric shapes in primary colors and their organic shapes in secondary colors. They could choose any color or colors for the background.

The next week, students finished their paintings by adding interesting patterns, using a variety of repeating lines and shapes.

Students could also mix colors using black and white, so we explored pink and gray, among many other colors!

Here are some examples of our Elizabeth Murray inspired shape paintings: 

Kingston, 1st Grade

Ava, 1st Grade

Aiden, 1st Grade

Aysha, 1st Grade

Sawyer, 1st Grade

Crazy for Kandinsky

1st grade artists recently learned about warm and cool colors. We learned that warm colors, like red, orange, and yellow, remind us of warm things like fire and the sun. On the other hand, cool colors, like green, blue and violet, remind us of cool things like water and the sky. 

We looked at Wassily Kandinsky's Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles and noticed that Kandinsky used both warm and cool colors to paint the concentric circles.

Wassily Kandinsky, Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles (1913)

Students drew their own concentric circles. We noticed that Kandinsky's circles are not perfect circles, so ours don't have to be perfect, either! Using their previous experience with primary and secondary colors, students mixed their own secondary colors and painted alternating warm and cool colors to create a pattern. 

Take a look at our Kandinsky inspired concentric circles on the bulletin board in the connector hallway! 

Color Wheel Snowflakes

Recently artists in 2nd and 3rd grade have been exploring color and color mixing. In 2nd grade we painted color wheels, using the primary colors and mixing our secondary colors. Third graders also painted similar color wheels but they also mixed an additional set of colors called tertiary colors, combining the primary and secondary colors to create these intermediate colors. 

We noticed that the color wheel is organized in a way that helps you remember which 2 primary colors make a secondary color, because it is located in between the 2 primary colors that you need to mix:

3rd graders used a color wheel that included tertiary, or intermediate, colors:

For the tertiary colors, students had to consider how much of one color they should use to get red-orange vs. yellow-orange. We noticed that the names of the tertiary colors give you a clue about what colors you need more of. We tested some of our color mixes to make sure we had the color we wanted.

After the color wheels dried, we learned about the concept of radial symmetry, which can be seen in nature. Radial symmetry is symmetry around a central point. We looked at images of snowflakes under a microscope to see how each snowflake had radial symmetry in its design, and are all unique and different.

We learned how to fold our cut out color wheels, starting with folding it in half like a taco and eventually folding it into an ice cream cone shape. We then cut out a variety of shapes, making sure to leave a little space in between our shapes so our finished snowflake would not fall apart. Then it was time for the big reveal as we opened our snowflakes to see our intricate, unique and radially symmetrical designs!

We chose a black or blue background and glued our snowflakes on top. 

Cicily, 3rd Grade

Sidney, 3rd Grade

Nikolas, 3rd Grade

Tiffany, 3rd Grade

Examples from 3rd grade will be displayed in the connector hallway soon, so keep your eye out for our color wheels transformed into snowflakes!

Exploring Color Mixing

This past week, artists in PK and Kindergarten have been exploring color. We were familiar with our primary colors and had been using them for previous artwork, including our Mondrian inspired collages and our shape robots:

David, Kindergarten

We also painted lines and shapes using black paint and added our primary colors, being careful to wash out our brush between colors so they did not mix.

Our primary colored work is currently featured on the bulletin board:

This week we began to explore secondary colors, which are made by mixing the primary colors together. We thought about what might happen when we mix 2 primary colors together. We experimented with mixing our primary colors to make orange, green and violet. We made guesses as to what color might result when we mixed 2 colors together and we were excited when we were right!

After exploring color mixing together as a class, and thinking of different things that are orange, green or violet in color, we began our own exploration and experimentation!

We mixed red and yellow to make orange, blue and yellow to make green, and blue and red to make violet. We thought about how to make a darker color and a lighter color. Some of us tried to mix all 3 primary colors together and discovered that it made brown! 

Duncan, Kindergarten

Calvin, Kindergarten

Mera, Kindergarten

Next class we will be learning even more about our secondary colors!