Teaching Kids the Magic of Color

The long cold days of winter are the perfect time to delve a little deeper into a few things I've been meaning to teach the girls. One such topic is color theory, and while the girls have known how to mix and make various colors since they were tiny, there's always room for practice. We also explored beyond primary and secondary colors, into tertiary colors and complimentary colors.

You want a big surface with enough space to mix lots of colors. I used baking sheets for this, and if you're using tempera or acrylic paints, it will wash right off with water. We started with only the three primary colors, along with one paintbrush and a palette knife. If you don't have a palette knife, you can substitute a butter knife or use clay tools, like we did.

Make a simple color wheel with blank spaces, and have the kids fill in the primary colors, and then have them mix the secondary colors. Encourage them to mix the colors thoroughly with the knife before painting.

From there move into tertiary colors, demonstrating how red mixed with orange makes red-orange, how blue mixed with green makes blue-green, etc...

After doing this exercise, my small girl exclaimed that there was no color she couldn't make. (I didn't have the heart to tell her about tone yet. YET.)

Next we talked about complementary colors, and how they relate to each other. We noted that they are opposite from each other on the color wheel, and that these colors tend to make the each other look brighter. Red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple—all common color combinations that look good together

I encouraged them to mix the complimentary colors together, and the girls were surprised to see that they all made brown. We compared the difference between the rich browns we had just made and the brown straight out of the tube. It was clear to the girls the difference in richness of a color made "from scratch." We talked about how, really, we only needed the three primary colors, plus black and white in order to make any color they wanted.

In college, my professors were always telling us to make the color, not buy the color, and that a mixed color would have richness, depth, and interest that a factory color would be lacking.

Like a good recipe, it's the quality of each part that goes into the whole that's the difference between a ho-hum finished product, and an amazing one. Keep this in mind as you encourage your kids to make their own colors, using their knowledge of the color wheel as a guide. Their finished paintings will have a new level of interest to them, as well as an added level of involvement. And having kids push paint around with palette knives is a fine way to spend a long, cold day.

For more tips on teaching your kids to use color in their art, read my Beginner Drawing Lesson for Kids post on color.

Beginner Drawing Lessons, Part III

Yay! Welcome to the third and final lesson in this three-part series: Color

Where would we be without color? The deep blue sea, scarlet poppies, and blazing sunsets would all be pretty nondescript without the hues that make them unforgettable.

There is so much to learn about color, but I'm going to keep it fairly simple here. While it is true that a strong foundation of color and color relationships will take an artist's work to the next level, for the purposes of this simple lesson, we'll skip the color wheel, so as not to bore the kids to death, and jump right to actually using color.

To start, let's go back to "seeing with our eyes and not our brains" (I know, I keep bringing this up, but it is one of the best things you can keep in mind when rendering objects). Just like the tomatoes of Lesson I are not perfectly spherical in shape, nor are they just red. On a single tomato we can spy red, orange, yellow, and deep crimson, and even a hue that seemed somewhat blue, not counting the greens of the stem and browns of the blemishes. It is precisely this myriad of color that makes an object interesting when rendered.

Take a closer look. See the variations. Encourage your kids to believe that they really are seeing colors that don't necessarily "make sense," like blue on a tomato.There are many reasons for seeing that blue, like a reflection from a nearby object, or the combination of a particular shade of red, mixed with the low-value tones of a shadow.

Even if your subject is a factory-made piece of purple plastic that features a consistent shade, that purple is going to appear slightly different, depending on how the light and shadows are effecting it. So, you see, nothing should ever be rendered as just one color, even if it is...just one color.

Color Exercise:
For this lesson, you will not necessarily need to set up a still life. In fact, drawing from nature would serve this lesson best, as objects that occur in nature tend to have many variations in color.

• Take a walk with your kids around the yard or inside your home. Point to objects and have them say the first color that comes to mind, like "green!" for grass.
• Next, have them take a closer look. If they can, have them touch the object, and look at it from all angles, noticing color differences. For example, a leaf might be bright green on the top, but a muted yellow-green on the underside. See if they can recognize more colors than the original one-word answer.
•  Once your kids start drawing their objects, encourage them to use as many different colors as possible. A peach could be drawn using orange, red, brown, and yellow, as opposed to coloring it light orange in one place, dark orange where the shadow is.
• Once they are comfortable with using so many colors, ask them to draw an object using a completely different set of colors. They could take a small collection of blues and oranges and render a leaf with shadows and highlights using the wacky colors. The end result will be an eye-popping composition. 
• For and advanced challenge, try drawing a set of objects using only blocks and patches of color—no lines—like we did with value in Lesson II.

If you're you're interested in exploring color a little further, Marmalade Moon just posted a great list of color inspiration links.

I hope you and your kids enjoyed this Beginner Drawing series. I plan to expand upon these lessons in the future, and will keep you posted on that front, as details emerge.

Beginner Drawing Lessons, Part II

Welcome to the second lesson of this three-part series: Value

In art, value refers to the darkness and lightness of color or tone. The variations in light and dark within a drawing are what will make it come to life. Have you ever noticed how an unexpected highlight on an object makes it really pop? Or have you felt the depths of a darkly-rendered shadow? Yep, it's all about value. From the highest value—white, to the lowest value—black, and everything in between—this is what creates volume and sense of space and depth.

In our still life of the group of tomatoes, we first took note of where the different light sources were coming from. Then we noticed where the brightest and darkest parts of our scene were. After those easier to identify values were determined, we discussed the more subtle shades, looking at how the lighter parts of the tomatoes fade gradually into different shades of darkness. This lesson is meant to be practiced in black and white, using pencil/charcoal on paper, so kids won't confuse light and dark color with light and dark value.

There are different ways to render value. Some artists use cross hatching, others use sketchy lines or scribbles, others blend their pencil/charcoal to create gradual changes.

A good way to practice different values of light is to make a value chart. Simply draw a rectangle about 6" long and, starting with white, gradually sketch darker and darker values across until you have the darkest possible color your pencil can make. Show them how they can create darker colors by bearing down harder on the paper, as well as by using more lines closer together.

Value Exercise:

• Start by having your kids make a value chart. This will help them recognize the subtleties in all the shades between white and black.
  
• Have them try a few different ways of shading, and let them chose the method they prefer.
  
• Using a simple still life like the one in the previous lesson, ask your kids to tell you where the light is coming from how it is shining on the objects. It may help to set up the still life next to a window or a lamp, so that there are strong lights and darks for them to identify. You could even rig up a flashlight to make extreme shadows.
  
• Next, ask them to point to the brightest and darkest parts of the objects. Once those are established, have them take note of all the different shades in between.
  
• When they begin to draw, encourage them to use their value chart as a reference. Suggest that they use the white of the paper as the brightest spot, and fill in the lower values from there.
• If the kids are into it, ask them to try drawing one without using any lines at all. See if they can render objects just by creating various values.
  

Have fun! See you back here soon with the last lesson: color.