Ask if anyone remembers what kinds of colors we talked about in the last art lesson (warm and cool colors). Review what the colors are and have the children point to instances of them in the classroom. Then tell the children that today we will talk about three colors that are called primary colors. Ask if anyone knows or could guess what the word primary means. Remind them about the word primary in primary school and what that means (the first school). Tell them that there are other words that belong to the same family and sound a bit like primary. Have them think of primer (the first book), the primer coat that you use when you paint a room or house (the first coat of paint), and even a prima ballerina which refers to the first and most important female dancer in a whole dance troupe.

Say: The primary colors are the first colors, the most basic colors that cannot be made by mixing any other colors together. Those colors are red, yellow, and blue. Then have the children repeat after you:

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. Signal. Repeat.

The primary colors are _____________ Signal. (red, yellow, blue)

Red is a primary color.

What is red? Signal. (Red is a primary color.)

Yellow is a primary color.

What is yellow? Signal. (Yellow is a primary color.)

Blue is a primary color.

What is blue? Signal. (Blue is a primary color.)

Repeat until firm.

Next, say: Let's see what other colors we can make using these primary colors, red, yellow, and blue.

Demonstration

Take the glass container filled with water. Using the eyedropper, put in a few drops of blue and have students take a good look at the color. Slowly add a few drop of yellow, and have them watch to see the color green result. In the second container put a few drops of red; add a few drops of yellow to produce orange. Do the same to produce purple, and finally produce brown.

Discuss the various colors and suggest that the children might want to do this at home with their families in the kitchen, and they can experiment to see how the shade of green would vary, for example, with the amount of yellow they add to the blue.

Have the children repeat after you:

The secondary colors are orange, green and purple. Signal. Repeat.

BCP DRAFT ART 5

First Grade - Visual Arts - Lesson 2 - Color

The secondary colors are ______________ Signal. (orange, green, purple)

Orange is a secondary color.

What is orange? Signal. (Orange is a secondary color.)

Green is a secondary color.

What is green? Signal. (Green is a secondary color.)

Purple is a secondary color.

What is purple? Signal. (Purple is a secondary color.)

Repeat until firm.

Activity

Draw and color a tree.

Procedure

Have the children draw trees and color them. Tell them to think about the colors they will need. Remind them that, since it is September, they have probably noticed that the leaves on some trees have turned yellow, some red, and some brown. Some may still be green. Tell them they have all the colors they need to produce those colors, to think about what they have just learned about mixing primary colors to produce other colors, and then to go ahead and color their trees.

Have the children observe one another's crayoned trees, and discuss the colors they were able to produce using only the three primary colors.

The children learn about warm and cool colors in kindergarten. Ask if anyone remembers which are the warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) and which are cool (blues, greens, purples).

Ask questions about where in nature the children see these colors (green trees, blue lake, red burning charcoal in a barbecue). To reinforce the ideas of warm and cool colors ask the children what they can think of that feels warm (the sun, fire, the glowing embers that you see after the barbecue burns down). Then ask what colors are contained in sun, fire, glowing embers (reds, oranges, yellows).

Next, ask if they can think of things that feel cool (a lake or swimming pool, a pasture for animals, the sky at twilight). Then ask what colors predominate in the water of a lake or swimming pool, a pasture, and the sky as evening falls (blues, greens, purples).

Ask the children which set of colors, warm or cool, they think would go with feelings of anger (warm, especially red). Which set goes with feelings of calm, peacefulness? (cool, especially blue and green) Ask them which colors they have in their house, on the walls of their bedrooms, which colors they prefer and why. Tell the children that painters and other visual artists think about these things when they create their work, that in a painting warm colors seem to come closer and cool colors seem to recede more into the background. (If the students need help with the word recede, have them picture to themselves a man with a receding hairline.)

Show the children the slide of Interior, Flowers, Parakeets. Tell them it was painted at the beginning of our century by a Frenchman named Henri Matisse. Ask what country they think he came from (France) and locate it on the classroom map or globe for them. Ask which continent France belongs to (Europe) and point that out as well.

Ask whether they would like to live in the room they see in the painting. Why or why not? Try to get responses from all the children. Then ask: What color do you think stands out more than any other in this painting? (red) How many shades of red can you see? (at least 4 or 5 ) (Make sure that everyone understands the term shade, and illustrate by showing various skin or clothing shades of the same color.) Ask them whether the reds in the Matisse painting make the room seem cool, calm, and restful or warm, busy, and energetic.

Now ask the children whether Matisse used warm or cool colors for this painting or whether he used both (almost entirely warm: red, gold, golden brown; a bits of pale blue on walls that seem to recede). Briefly repeat some of the characteristics of warm and cool colors and how they make the children feel about the room in this painting.

Next show the children the slide of Cassatt's portrait of the little girl. Have them guess what the term portrait means and point out that nowadays we all take photographs of people, but that for hundreds and hundreds of years only artists made portraits of people so that others could see what the person looked like. Tell them this portrait was made by an American woman nearly one hundred years ago and that in this case she didn't use paint but a special kind of chalklike crayons made of ground color pigments (mixed with water and a binding medium) that we call pastels. Ask how they could tell that it was done long ago if you hadn't told them (the hat and dress of the little girl). Tell them that although Mary Cassatt was an American, she lived for many years in the same country as Matisse. Ask who remembers the name of that country. Ask them which colors they see in this portrait (blue, green, white) and how the colors make them feel. Ask the children what they would guess about whether the child is quiet and especially well behaved or energetic and active. Did the painter choose warm or cool colors to portray this little girl?

Review once more the names of the warm and cool colors.

Activity

Make color bouquets.

Procedure

Distribute pieces of colored tissue to the children, allowing each one to choose from the colors available. Hold the sheet by the center and twist to make a stem, fanning out the rest to look like a tissue flower. Have the students do the same. Then ask all with warm colors to come forward, then all with cool colors to come forward in order to make two bouquets. Finally, let them mix the colors and observe the different effects of the various mixtures.