Stem Versus STEAM... Love this!!

University of Florida’s Online Master of Arts in Art Education

Experimenting with Color Part 1

A few weeks ago I went a really cool STEM workshop on light and color. I was the only art teacher in a group of 20 other  educators. I had researched color in light before but had a hard time grasping it. When the teacher asked what the primary colors of light were I knew enough NOT to say red, yellow, and blue!

The first thing I saw after putting on the diffraction glasses was this!

Beautiful AND totally opposite of everything I knew about color in art.

Over the course of the workshop I finally began to grasp color in light. It was a breakthrough for my stubborn artist mind.

And so started my creation of a plan that was designed to confuse and intrigue my students. Confused?

Step 1

Make the students become the color wheel we know in art.

First I gave each student a primary or secondary color. I asked them to make themselves into a color wheel. We went outside for more space.

Next I grouped students by color and gave them a dot to represent their group. We played with "find the color that makes a tertiary". They then got back into the color wheel order where we played "find your compliment"

This lead into our discussion on neutrals and at this point it was time to go back to the art studio "lab"

Each team was given three cups of primary colored water. Then were then given 9 more cups and told to create the color wheel.

They had to pay close attention to their measurements as they were not allowed to get more liquid and they had to end up with every color.

They were so focused it was awesome!! 

All teams had a little different results but were all able to create the color wheel. 

When the color wheels were finished it was time to make our neutrals and then mix all our colors together.

The class had confirmed what they already knew, that when we mix all the colors on the color wheel together we get a dark brownish blackish neutral color.

Now it's time for me to turn that theory upside down!!

Stay tuned...