Second Grade Art Lesson 3

Crayon Color Wheel

Objective:

The students will know what the primary, secondary, warm and cool colors are. The students will make their own color wheel.

Materials:

red, yellow, blue, orange, green and purple crayons, a paper plate (cannot be Styrofoam), a black marking pen

Procedure:

Today we are going to learn about the color wheel and how the colors are ordered. We will make our own color wheel on a paper plate using crayons. We will begin with the primary colors which are red, yellow and blue. These three colors are called primary because they are the first and most important colors. We cannot use any other colors to make a red or yellow or blue. But with these three colors we can make many other colors. Draw three triangle equally spaced on your paper plate. Make on red, one yellow and one blue coloring them in dark and solid. Next are the secondary colors, orange, green and purple (also called violet). These are the colors we get when we mix two primary colors together. On your paper plate draw three more triangles equally spaced. Leave room between the primary and secondary color for yet another triangle. Color each of the three triangles the color they should be. Because red and yellow make orange, color orange in the triangle between the red and yellow triangle. Since yellow and blue make green, color the triangle between these two primary colors with your green. Finally, red and blue make purple, so the triangle between red and blue needs to be purple. Next, let's get some practice mixing colors. We will fill in the tertiary colors which are created when one primary and one secondary color are mixed. The tertiary colors are red violet, red orange, blue violet, blue green, yellow orange and yellow green. To mix crayons, begin by coloring the first color lightly onto your paper. Layer the next color on top of it. You should end up with a pretty solidly colored area. Be sure to control your crayons and do not start scribbling. Finally, let's look at still another set of colors called warm and cool. Notice that if we draw a line across our color wheel between the yellow orange and over to the red violet, our wheel is equally divided into two sets we call the warm and cool colors. Warm colors are reds, yellows and oranges. We can remember them easily because they are like the colors in the sun which keeps us warm. The cool colors are blues, greens and violets. These colors are like the ocean which cools us off from the warm sun. When we look out over the ocean we see blues and greens and violets. To remind us of all of the color schemes we have learned, use your black marking pen to label each triangle by writing in the outer edge of the plate.

Conclusion:

Review primary, secondary, warm and cool colors with the class. Have them put their names on their color wheel and store them so they can refer to them whenever they need to.

Artwork and Examples used in this lesson

Primary and Secondary Colors

Color Wheel