My favorite way to teach color theory

My tried and true way to teach color theory in a meaningful and fun way

I like to keep a healthy balance of teaching technique while still giving students opportunities for creativity and problem solving.  I find that in seventh grade is a great year to be a little heavier in technique so that students are well equipped when they get more freedom in eighth grade.  As an artist, I love mixing color and finding ways to understand color better.  I have found this to be the best way to teach color theory in a way that is meaningful to the students.

Warm-up activity:  Color Mixing Game (teams of 2-3)

This is the perfect way to set expectations right from the beginning with paint set up and clean up because this is for a prize and students will try to meet all expectations to get that prize.  BTW, the prize is a pencil, which is pretty lame but students love competing and will do anything to win no matter what the prize.  The object of the game is to problem solve with their groups to match a finished work that is hanging on the board.  In the process they are practicing different painting techniques they can employ later as well as practicing color mixing.  Normally, I would never want students to copy the teacher example.  In this case, its a problem solving activity which is putting the burden on their brains and equipping them for techniques for future painting projects.

1. Set up palettes with only red, yellow, blue, black and white.  Set up water and brushes.

2.  Reveal the Painting:

You would be amazed at how intently students work!  This takes a total of two 48 minute periods so the students who get to class sooner on the second day have an advantage.  This was by far the most prompt my class has ever been!

At the end of day 2, choose a winner.

Activity #2:  Blurry landscape paintings using only red, yellow, blue, black and white.  

On my smartboard I will show students 9 landscapes.  The students will pick 4 of the 9 to paint. This is a challenge for the students but I blur the smartboard in an attempt to force them to paint large areas, ignoring details until the end.  Later into the activity, I focus the board so students can paint details on top of larger areas.  Its amazing to see them put their color theory knowledge into practice as they mix color to achieve the different colors in the landscapes!  I think their landscapes are absolutely beautiful!

All of this will knowledge will be utilized in a third painting, illustrated song lyrics.  Check back for those fabulous pieces!

Deconstructed Books (student work)

My students were tasked with the challenge of deconstructing a book for this assignment.  After altering every page in some way, they were told to take their sculptural form and elaborate on the project by adding an additional element.  Students found many sources of inspiration and created very beautiful art pieces.  I am so proud of them!

Life's a Deal

I borrowed this wonderful lesson from Olivia Gude's Spiral Curriculum.  We started with a discussion about how much of our life is determined by chance and how much is determined by choice.  The students collaged from magazines and then passed cards after a period of time.  After two days of collaging, I laid out the cards and drew names for students to choose their backgrounds.  I then dealt the playing cards and asked students to incorporate the suit and number into their designs.  The students drew on their cards with oil pastels and blended them with baby oil.  They turned out really cool!

Art Journal

Lately I have been really interested in the idea of art journalling.  I think this would be a great way to start the year to really give your students a chance to build their creative muscles first and then slowly begin to insert meaning into their work.  I want to stress that I really began this project as an exploration into creativity-the pressure should be off especially in the beginning.  The students should just feel free to create because they can alway add and alter their work later.

I created this book out of two sort of "signatures" which each consist of 4 double sided pages (I will give directions below on how to fold papers in this way) which were sewn down the middle.  This created 7 pages on the inside to fill with loads of creativity.  The first step to this project is creating the book.  It looks complicated but its really not...here we go!

Step 1:  Paint Background

Create a painted background on two seperate 18"x24" papers with a similar color story.  I really wanted this to be very explorativea, applying the paint with some non-traditional materials such as a old credit card, marker lids, bubble wrap, the list could go on and on.

Here are my two painted papers:

Now, let your painted papers completely dry.

Step 2:  Created 2 Folded Signatures

Fold each paper into a 4 page "signature."  This looks complicated but once you get the hang of it, it is really easy.

1.  Fold paper in half:

2.  Fold in half again:

3.  Fold in half one more time:

When you open it up, you will have 8 sections, like this:

4.  Cut down the horizontal line from the first intersecting point to the third intersecting point.

We want to have a cut that goes down the horizontal folded line from the first intersection to the third intersection.  To accomplish this, I like to fold it on the vertical middle line and cut from the middle of the page to the first and third intersecting point (which should line up when the page is folded on the middle vertical line.)

If you have done this correctly, your page should look like it has a mouth.

5.  Fold paper in half horizontally allowing the middle cut line to push the middle of the page into a diamond shape.

6. Push diamond shape together and align the middle and you should have 4 double sided pages.  Flatten it out and fold it around and you will have a nifty little 4 double sided page book.

7.  Repeat this step until you have two books.

8.  Open them both up to the middle and stack one on top of another.  These are your two signatures.

9.  Sew them together down the middle.

Great Job!  You made a book and now we are ready to turn it into an art journal.  Aside from the cover and back of the book you will have seven pages to work with.  Lets get started in our creativity pratices.

Day one:  Introduce Zentangle.

Zentangle is just a form of doodling.  It is really good for the students because they don't have to go into the design process with a plan, they are just doodling and adding to their work as they go along.  If they mess up, they have created a creative problem to solve and that will most likely make their work even better.  I like to start out with a youtube video or two demostrating zentangle.

Day 2:  Introduce Collage.

Again, the students don't have to have a plan.  I would just encourage them to look for words or images that grab their attention and glue them onto the second page in an interesting way.

Once you have introduced collage, students can add collaged images to their zentangle page and zentangle patterns to their collage page.

Notice the collage elements I added.

See the doodles I added?

Day 3:  Introduce color in the form of paint, pastel, colored pencils, etc.

I painted this on Day 3 and I also added some paint to a few pages that I would be working on in the future.  Also, it's always fine to go back and add paint to the first two pages.  The great thing about this book is that the pages don't really fall flat together so they don't dry stuck together.

Day 4:  Add to the painted page with sharpie, collage, whatever you want

Day 5:  Introduce meaning by having students design a page with text from a song, a quote, some words that they identify with.  They can also go back and add to any of the pages they have already done.

Day six:  Add black and white paper from book page or newspaper and add to it what you want.

Day 7:  Design whatever you want using any of the mediums we have previously played with.

Day 8:  Make the last Page about you.  You must include a picture of you.  From there, You can do what you want-collage, sharpie, paint, text...whatever you want.

Here's the finished Product of all my pages:

Cover

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7