Name in the Color

Color Wheel
Medium: Oil Pastel and Water Color

Reason for Lesson: To introduce students to the concept of the color wheel.  This lesson discussed primary and secondary colors.

Prep Time: 15-30 minutes for materials.  May take a little longer to learn and formulate lesson to deliver the color wheel concepts.

Classroom Time: 1 Hour

Materials: Color Wheel to show in class,

Preparation: 'Brush up' on Color Theory! Create a 'sample' to show the students. 

Instructions for Leading the Lesson
Introduce, in a simple format, the concept of the Color Wheel/Color Theory. Discuss that artists can make use of the Color Wheel to develop their artwork.  

Show  a color wheel that consisted of 12 colors.  Yellow at the top, then clock wise; Yellow-orange, Red-orange, Red, Red-violet, Violet, Blue-violet, Blue, Blue-green, Green, and Yellow-green.  We refer to a few of them by more common names, like Purple (for Blue –violet), Turquoise (Blue-green), or Magenta (which is pretty close to red-violet).  Other names like Light or Dark Orange, or even Chartruese (for Yellow-green, are sometimes used by artists as well).

Discuss PRIMARY COLORS  which are the most important colors in the wheel. The only colors are RED, BLUE and YELLOW.  If you’re a painter, you can get any other color you need just by mixing red, blue and yellow paint. 

The PRIMARY COLORS are known as power colors---blue and red are known specifically as power colors (think cars), and yellow is the brightest color on the whole color wheel. 

Show the students that when you mix any two of the primary colors together and you’ll get one of the next three hues: the SECONDARY COLORS . Green, Orange, and Violet fall in between red, blue and yellow, and each one serves as COMPLEMENTARY COLORS to one of the primary colors.

 

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS, when put together, appear brighter or more vivid than when apart.  Each color is enhanced by the closeness of its ‘opposite’.