color wheel pro see color theory in action

There’s so many great resources out there. Even if you don’t know about all of those things yourself, you can explore it with your students. Really, isn’t that what’s it’s all about? We need to be giving kids the tools and the knowledge they need to create successful artwork. More important than anything though, they know how to use color, how to affect their artwork and the viewer through the ways they select and utilize color. They know about perception and emotional effects, and psychological and physiological reactions to color. They know about reflection, absorption, and wavelengths. But when we get to the second, third, or fourth year of kids being in the art room, you better believe we are far beyond red, yellow, and blue.īefore my advance students leave my classroom they’ve seen and mixed just about every color imaginable. Some of my kids haven’t had art in years, sometimes ever, and we need to start with those building blocks. My high school intro class it’s very similar. Then we move on to complements and color schemes and the effects of color. It’s a basic building block of knowledge. For the little kids who were learning how rainbows work the names of their colors and how to spell them, that’s perfect. When I taught elementary we always did red, yellow, blue as the primaries. It’s not necessarily the right way or the wrong way, but just the way I’ve done it before and the way I found success. Let me tell you a little bit about I guess what I do with color theory, what’s worked for me and for my students. Third, it’s going to be different for everyone because your teaching needs to be responsive to the needs of your students. Secondly, if you teach the science behind color and the visible light spectrum, the framework of seeing wavelengths from red to purple, it’s a necessary bit of information. There’s not a right way to do anything in the art room. You see these articles, “Red is no longer a primary color,” somebody start up a discussion, “Our primary colors are completely irrelevant,” and then we go back and forth for dozens if not hundreds of comments talking about whether you have the wrong color wheel in your classroom or talking about the “right way” to do color theory.įirst of all, let’s calm down. I’m not on social media all that often but it seems like every time I’m on the Art Teachers Facebook group someone feels the need to bring up the idea of us needing to get away from the idea of red, yellow, blue as the primaries, move toward cyan, magenta, yellow. Hey, how do we pass along that excitement to our students? How do we engage them? It all comes back to my favorite mantra when it comes to teaching, don’t be boring.īefore we talk student engagement let’s talk about the idea of color theory and how we teach it. Tim: We’ll try today to figure out exactly how we can translate the appeal of color theory to the students in our classroom. By incorporating the science behind it and the motions associated with it you’re giving your students multiple routes to connecting with color in your classroom. Tim: Slu is the author of the Nerdy Art Teacher blog, and one of the things she does best is color theory, in her painting classes, in her own art work, and in her incredibly well received presentation at the Colorado Art Educators Association Conference last year.Īndrea: Color is an experience and that’s how we should be teaching it. I’m an art teacher from Gateway High School in Metro Denver, Colorado. Today though I’m going to talk to someone who loves to nerd out about color even more than I do.Īndrea: I’m Andrea Slusarski. More importantly, I love teaching my kids about all these things as well.

I love the intricacies, the science behind color, and just the endless possibilities that come with mixing color. Today’s episode is called “How to teach color theory and keep students engaged.” I’m one of those people who can talk about color theory for days. This show is produced by The Art of Education and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers.

She has also put together the best color theory resource you can find.

Check out Andrea’s blog:, and follow her on Twitter:.

Take a look at AOE’s favorite articles about color theory:.

Tim closes the show talking about student engagement and the benefits of engaging instruction. Listen for a discussion on the exciting parts of science and color theory (5:00), why we need to ditch our color wheel projects (9:30), and the perfect project to inspire students’ confidence (15:00).

Andrea Slusarski, aka The Nerdy Art Teacher, joins Tim to talk about using color theory to develop student engagement and a better classroom experience for her students. This episode is a great discussion on color theory, as well as the “hows” and “whys” of teaching it.

Color wheel pro see color theory in action