art ed digested

During the month of January and February, all of my students will begin a journey though the land of color. Our unit will begin in the same way for each class, a simple color wheel. Students must create the hues of the color wheel; Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green, Blue-Green, Blue, Blue-Violet, Purple, and Magenta using only the primary colors Red, Yellow, and Blue.

Color theory and optics are vital parts of every art student’s education up through the collegiate level! There are many wonderful resources on the web that can help enrich your understanding of color, and here’s a quick sampling of my favorites:

Causes of Color is a fabulous site that explores color from many different angles, including the science of Optics, and explanations for color in nature.

Color in Motion is a wonderful interactive media site that includes animation, games, and activities, that focus on the feelings and symbolism evoked by primary and secondary colors.

Color Theory by Worqx is slightly more text heavy, but also incredibly full of straightforward information with helpful diagrams.

This Color Mixing Game invites the player to match the hue of the bouncing ball by clicking on different colors to add. This is a great way to practice color mixing skills for painting!

It is important to note that many students do not experience color in a way that the majority of the world does, and these people are often categorized as “color-blind.” These students can participate in color theory lessons in a modified way, and have much to share with the class regarding their different visual take on the world

Color-blindness is the inability to distinguish the differences between certain colors. This condition results from an absence of color-sensitive pigment in the cone cells of the retina, the nerve layer at the back of the eye. Approximately 1 out of 12 males and 1 out of 200 women are color blind.