7 Color-Mixing Activities to Try With Watercolor

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Overview

The article includes seven activities to practice mixing colors - glazing lines, transparent shape diagrams, color bias color wheels, washable markers drips, watercolor pencil layering, monochromatic layers, and color mixing chart.

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): KG - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.K.1

Engage in self-directed exploration and imaginative play with art materials.

UP:AE17.VA.K.1

Vocabulary

  • Art
  • Artwork
  • Collaboratively
  • Collage
  • Cool colors
  • Warm colors
  • Elements of Art
    • Color
    • Line
    • Shape
  • Imaginative play
  • Play
  • Portfolio
  • Primary colors
  • Principles of design
    • Pattern
  • Printmaking

Essential Questions

EU: Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.
EQ: What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking? What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks? How does collaboration expand the creative process?

Skills Examples

  • Create two-dimensional artworks using finger painting, watercolors, paper collage, and rubbings.
  • Create three-dimensional artworks using techniques such as rolling, folding, cutting, molding, pinching, and pulling clay.
  • Work with a partner to create works of art.
  • Working in small groups, use recycled materials to create artworks.
  • Explore the books Why is Blue Dog Blue? by G. Rodrigue and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss to understand color meanings and moods.
  • Read the book Lines that Wiggle by Candace Whitman to explore different styles of line.
  • Safely use and share scissors, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, paints, paintbrushes, and clay.
  • Use symbols to help tell a personal or make-believe story.
  • Manipulate art media to create textures and patterns.
  • Identify and use organic and geometric shapes to create works of art.
  • Show respect for self and others while making and viewing art.
  • Use the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) to create a free-style painting while singing the names of the colors.
  • Use patterns in designing colored stripes on the shirt of a person you know.
  • Collect found objects such as paper tubes, forks, and pieces of cardboard. Press them in shallow tempera paint, and stamp them on paper to show printmaking.
  • Create a T-chart that separates cool (blue, green, and purple) and warm (red, yellow, and orange) colors in different columns. Use the symbols of water waves for the cool column header and the sun for the warm column header.
  • Work with a partner to find colors, lines, and shapes in art and tell each other what you see.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.1.2

Explore and experiment with a range of art materials.

UP:AE17.VA.1.2

Vocabulary

  • Complementary colors
  • Contrast
  • Curator
  • Elements of Art
    • Texture
  • Landscapes
  • Portrait
  • Positive/ negative space and shape
  • Principles of design
    • Repetition
    • Variety
  • Secondary colors
  • Still life
  • Technique
  • Venue

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Work with a partner or small group to create an artwork.
  • Use the book Perfect Square by Michael Hall to help "thinking outside the box" skills.
  • Create two-dimensional artworks using a variety of gadgets for printmaking.
  • Use paint media to create paintings of family portraits or a favorite memory.
  • Create three-dimensional artworks such as clay pinch pots or found-object sculptures.
  • View a step-by-step demonstration of an artistic technique.
  • Properly clean and store art materials.
  • Use Mouse Paint book by Helen Walsh to teach color mixing of primary to achieve secondary colors.
  • Create a painting inspired by Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie.
  • Create a "Pop Art" inspired artwork of positive and negative spaces and shapes by using colored paper cut-outs and gluing to different background squares.
  • Make a color wheel and identify the complimentary colors (red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple).
  • Draw different forms in the school environment: cones in the gym, cubes in math center, and sphere used for a globe.
  • Create texture rubbings by placing paper over different surfaces and rubbing with a crayon or oil pastel. Use a rough brick wall, a smooth table, bumpy bubble wrap, or soft felt shapes.
  • Use repetition in art by looking at the designs on a shell or the stripes of a zebra for inspiration.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 2 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.2.2

Explore personal interests and curiosities with a range of art materials.

UP:AE17.VA.2.2

Vocabulary

  • Principles of design
    • Balance
  • Brainstorming
  • Composition
  • Concepts
  • Characteristic
  • Elements of art
    • Space
    • Value
  • Expressive properties
  • Foreground
  • Middle ground
  • Neutral colors
  • Resist

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Create two-dimensional artworks such as drawing or painting by using a variety of media.
  • Use the book, The Goat in the Rug by Charles L.
    • Blood & Martin Link to learn about weaving.
  • Use clay or pipe cleaners to create small animal sculptures.
  • Work in groups to brainstorm ideas for a collaborative art project.
  • Use a book about clay, When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor to study Native Americans and their traditions.
  • Use the book A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle to explore collage techniques.
  • Create a real or imagined home using two-and-three-dimensional media.
  • Learn how to properly use and store brushes, close glue bottles and marker tops.
  • Use found objects such as leaves, rocks, paper tubes, egg cartons, etc.
    • to create artworks.
  • Use the book A Day with No Crayons by Elizabeth Rusch to explore different colors and values.
  • Create a landscape showing depth by placing the foreground, middle ground and background in their correct positions.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.3.2

Demonstrate skills using available resources, tools, and technologies to investigate personal ideas through the art-making process.

UP:AE17.VA.3.2

Vocabulary

  • Creativity
  • Criteria
  • Critique
  • Design
  • Media
  • Mixed media
  • Monochromatic
  • Principles of design
    • Rhythm
  • Technology
  • Visual image

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Use a variety of materials to create a three-dimensional mask showing a student's personality.
  • Use torn paper scraps to create rhythm in a landscape.
  • Plan a community/city; then, build a model of it with recyclable materials, such as cardboard, boxes, containers, and tubes.
  • Collaborate with a group to demonstrate how to care for tools used in class (such as paintbrushes).
  • After looking at Vincent van Gogh's painting, Bedroom, create a narrative painting depicting a memory of a student's personal bedroom.
  • Use appropriate visual art vocabulary during the art-making process of two-and-three-dimensional artworks.
  • Collaborate with others to create a work of art that addresses an interdisciplinary theme.
  • Read and explore books like Imagine That by Joyce Raimondo or Dinner at Magritte's by Michael Garland and then create a Surrealistic style artwork.
  • Recognize and identify choices that give meaning to a personal work of art.
  • Create a drawing using monochromatic colors (paint, oil pastels, etc.).
  • Explore individual creativity using a variety of media.
  • Understand what effects different media can have in a work of art.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.4.3

Generate ideas and employ a variety of strategies and techniques to create a work of art/design.

UP:AE17.VA.4.3

Vocabulary

  • Constructed environment
  • Cultural traditions
  • Digital format
  • Engagement
  • Tertiary color
  • Preservation
  • Proportion
  • Principles of design
    • Unity
  • Shade
  • Style
  • Tints & shades

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and artmaking approaches.
EQ: How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

Skills Examples

  • Create a list of multiple ideas, sketches, or thumbnail-sketches before beginning the final version of an artwork.
  • Identify, select, and vary art materials, tools and processes to achieve desired results in their artwork.
  • Brainstorm (alone or with others) potential art styles for a given piece of art, such as Monet's Water Lilies.
  • Create an artwork from direct observation (still-life, self-portrait, figure drawing, etc.).
  • Design a two-dimensional drawings of a futuristic art room, town, or planet
  • Use wood, found objects, wire, paper, or clay-based materials to construct a three-dimensional form.
  • Locate business logos in the community and explore the visual arts skills and materials that were used to create these works.
  • Engage in group critiques of one's work and the work of others.
  • Experiment with art materials by using them in unusual and creative ways to express ideas and convey meaning.
  • Use and care for materials, tools, and equipment in a manner that prevents danger to oneself and others.
  • Mix equal parts of a primary and a secondary color located beside each other on the color wheel to create a tertiary color.
  • Use the design principles of repetition and alignment to add visual unity to an artwork.
  • Create a painting using a monochromatic color scheme by using one color (red) adding white to create a tint (a lighter value--pink) and adding black to the color (red) to create a shade (darker value).

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.5.2

Demonstrate the methods of the art-making process, including brainstorming, sketching, reflecting, and refining, to create a work of art/design.

UP:AE17.VA.5.2

Vocabulary

  • Cultural context
  • Formal & conceptual vocabulary
  • Genre
  • Linear perspective
  • Preserve
  • Principles of design
    • Movement
    • Emphasis
  • Relief
  • Vanishing point

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Use a variety of materials (wood, found objects, wire, paper, clay, etc.) to construct a three-dimensional work of art.
  • Have students keep journals to reflect on and combine ideas for their works of art.
  • Draw a still life of students' favorite objects, while adding color with a variety of media (paint, pastels, collage, etc.).
  • Draw an object or other images (landscapes, hallways, etc.) in linear one-point perspective.
  • Create tessellations in connection with interdisciplinary subjects such as mathematics.
  • Write a short story and illustrate the story with original drawings.
  • Draw and transform two-dimensional shapes into three-dimensional forms.
    • (squares to cubes, circles to spheres, triangles to pyramids and cones)
  • Write a personal artist statement to accompany an original work of art.
  • Draw a landscape including foreground, middle ground, and background.
  • Create an artwork integrating observational and technical skills to solve a problem or address contemporary social issues.
  • Create a bas-relief by carving into a clay slab.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

CR Resource Type

Learning Activity

Resource Provider

The Art of Education University

License Type

Custom
https://theartofeducation.edu/2021/03/17/7-color-mixing-activities-to-try-with-…

Custom License Type (URL)

https://theartofeducation.edu/terms-and-conditions/

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