Art Lesson: color

I know its now December, but November was hectic and I taught late, so here is November's art lesson.

We talked again about color, but this time I focused on the way colors interact with each other. Colors have such an effect on each other that we can perceive a color as changing just by placing it near another color. Start by taking a red piece of paper and cutting it into four rectangles.

Now take one piece of each, white, blue, yellow, and brown, and cut a rectangle out of the center. Place the colored papers on the red papers with the cut out centered over the red. To the eye the reds will appear different from each other, even thought they aren't. (Although its hard to tell in this picture.)

Since last month our project used warm colors, this month we talked about cool colors. I told about Picasso's blue period and Monet's use of cool colors to evoke calm in his paintings (notice some of Monet's train station paintings.) Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh is another predominately cool color painting, but with a lot of movement. I also told the kids a little aboutShan Shui and the literal translation of color. (Just remember, I am not a teacher or an expert, just a mom teaching second and third graders, so nothing too deep.)

There are two or three books that have beautiful illustrations in a cool color palette. We did this art project, but with Winter's night sky.