Complex Color Wheel

This was an Art II project. In this assignment students studied color theory. The assignment was to create a color wheel using only blue, red, yellow, and white.

Materials:

• Tempera paint ( red, blue, yellow, white, and black)
• paint brushes (big and small sizes)
• thick painting paper (square)
• scrap printer paper
• paper plates
• protractors
• rulers
• pencils

Procedures: 

Slideshow lesson with step by step instructions and video. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cGzDJLJ1EWQswYjGqr4H8_VacaEIEHOZ4xLpq6n-zWM/edit?usp=drivesdk

1. Take the square painting paper and use the paper plate to trace a circle in the middle of the paper.
2. Use the ruler to find the middle of the circle. This step is very important for the rest of the process to work correctly. Make sure your students take their time with this part. If a student is having trouble getting things to line up later in the process its possible they didn't center their design in the beginning.
3. Use the ruler to draw a line through the middle to divide the circle in half.
4. Next, use the protractor to divide the circle into 30 degree sections.
5. Then take the scrap printer paper to trace one of those 30 degree sections. On the scrap paper, the students will create a template of their design. The design can be what the students want but they had to have at least 6 sections going down toward the center.
6. Once the student has their design drawn out then they use the template to trace their design over and over to create the complete circular design. Note that every time the students trace into one sections, they will have to flip the paper over to trace in the next section.
7. Once the entire deign is drawn out in pencil, the student will use their paint to begin mixing colors and painting in their designs. The goal is to create all of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors on the outside edge of the design and then as the colors go towards the center of the circle, the students add white to create a gradual tint of the outside color.
8. The last step is to take black paint and paint all of the background. I find that the colors all pop and stand out more when you add the black background. 

My Example

Student Examples