Color Wheel Lesson Plan

The color wheel is the foundation of color theory, but creating a color wheel mandala teaches so much more than primary, secondary and tertiary colors. They are also learning about social studies: culture and history of rose windows and sand mandalas. Math: division and angles. Science: how rainbows are made through refracted light and the psychology of how certain colors can evoke emotions. Art: radial balance, repetition, value, unity, and color harmonies. Careers: interior and fashion design, graphic design, photography, floral design, landscaping and wedding planning all require a basic use of how to use color effectively.

In this lesson we watched videos of Buddhist monks making Sand Mandalas with colored sand. Students learned about the concepts of impermanence and change are basic principles of some philosophies, as the monks can sweep away a masterpiece that took a hundred plus man hours to create. There may be some wisdom in not being too attached to things. We also listened to an hour long Radiolab podcast on the science of color, which included musical chords to help us hear the range of most non-color blind people see compared to butterflies or prawn shrimp. We learned about the research of genetically rare tetrachrome people. They discussed how the color blue is not in ancient literature from the Bible to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Egypt being the one exception as they actually had a pigment for blue. Then came the project.

Students cut out 14 inch circles and did the math to figure out that the 12 sections would require 30 degree angles. They folded their circle into fourths and then each fourth into 3rds to get those 30 degree angles. They then used a compass and ruler to make designs. Some used a piece shaped piece of paper to create a design, which they then traced twelve times onto their wheel with the use of a light box. Students charted out where to put their primary colors of red, yellow and blue (with three spaces between each), and their secondary colors of orange, green, and purple. The six tertiary were the ones that were left, and each of their names consisted of the primary and secondary colors they were touching. The name is the recipe: yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, red-purple, red-orange, yellow-orange.  With a few markings students could keep track of where they wanted their lights and darks to go.

When mixing a color it is best to start with the lighter color and add a tiny bit of dark at a time until you get a mix that is visually even. If you mix equal parts of red (naturally dark color) and yellow (naturally light color) it will be a very red orange and you'll end up wasting gobs of yellow to get a middle orange color. The same works with tinting and shading colors. To make a color lighter, you tint it by adding a little of the color to white. But to make a color darker, you start with the color and shade it by adding a tiny bit of black at a time. Those dark paints are powerful.

By the time the color wheel is created, they've learned how to mix paint properly to create secondary and tertiary colors from the three basic primary colors. They've also learned to tint and shade each color. Once it's completed, real discussions can be had by using the wheel as a reference. What's the complement of red? look directly across the color wheel to find the green. Want to a nice analogous color pallet? point to any four neighboring colors on the wheel. Want to see what a monochromatic color scheme might look like? Look at any little pie piece on your wheel and you'll find darks and lights of the same hue. I feel so strongly about everyone learning their colorwheel, that I teach it to my blind students.