ARTS IMPACT INSTITUTE LESSON PLAN
Core Program Year 1 Arts Foundations
VISUAL ARTS LESSON – Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
Artist-Mentor: Beverly Harding Buehler
Grade Levels: K – Second Grade; Third – Fifth Grade
Examples:
Enduring Understanding
Opposing colors on the color wheel (warm vs. cool) can draw attention to each other when placed
together in a composition.
Target: Fills a color wheel, ordering the colors: red-orange-yellow-green-blue-violet.
Criteria: On pre-drawn color wheel template (Grades K-2=6 sections; Grades 3-5=12 sections)
paints three primary colors (red-yellow-blue) in designated sections, mixes two primary colors
together to create secondary colors (orange-green-violet) and aligns on the color wheel, and
mixes (Grades 3-5) one primary and one secondary color together to create tertiary/ intermediate
colors (red-violet/blue-violet, red-orange/yellow-orange, yellow-green/blue-green).
Target: Paints a non-representational composition of colored shapes.
Criteria: Creates shapes not related to representational subjects.
Target: Juxtaposes warm and cool colors for emphasis.
Criteria: Paints selected shapes with warm color to emphasize, and paints rest of composition
with cool color(s).
Teaching and Learning Strategies
1. Shows a color wheel and explains relative placement of colors on the wheel. Explains
primary colors are those that cannot be mixed, and they are equidistant from each other on
the color wheel. Guides students in marking R, Y, B in appropriate places on pre-drawn color
wheel templates. Prompts: Primary means first or original. Primary colors are those that cannot
be mixed from other colors; they are the original three colors from which all other colors are
made. On a color wheel, primary colors are placed equal distance from each other (on a six-pie
color wheel there is one section between each primary color. On a 12-pie color wheel there are
three sections between each primary color). Mark your empty color wheel with the letters, Y, R,
and B for yellow, red, blue—equal spaces apart.
Student: Labels each of the primary colors on the color wheel template.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based teacher checklist (room scan)
2. Demonstrates secondary colors achieved when two primary colors of paint are
mixed together. (Ways to demonstrate could include: mixing colors on paper in front of class,
mixing small containers of paint or dye on overhead, or overlaying colored acetate shapes on the
overhead). Guides students labeling secondary colors in their appropriate places on the
color wheel, and filling them in with paint. Prompts: If primary means first, what does secondary
mean? Secondary colors are those that are made from mixing two primary colors. What color do
you get when you mix yellow and red? Red and blue? Yellow and blue? On the color wheel, each
secondary color is placed right in the middle between the two primary colors from which it is
made. So which two primary colors are positioned on either side of orange? (red and yellow)
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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Green? (blue and yellow) Violet? (red and blue). Labels secondary sections. Mixes secondary
colors and paints onto corresponding section of color wheel diagram.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based self-assessment (using color wheel)
Grades 3-5 – See below.
3. Demonstrates mixing tertiary/intermediate colors (six) Prompts: Tertiary means third,
and tertiary colors (also called intermediate colors) are made from mixing a primary and a
secondary color together. A tertiary color is placed on the color wheel between the two colors
used to mix it, e.g. blue-violet is placed between blue (primary) and violet (secondary). We use
the word violet instead on purpose because when we mix intermediate colors, there is clear
difference between blue-violet and red-violet, for example. Asks students to approximate colors
only since the print colors on the color wheel and the pigmented colors of paint are different.
Student: Mixes intermediate colors and paints consistently in corresponding sections of the color
wheel.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based self-assessment (using color wheel)
4. Shows color wheel divided in half to describe warm colors on one side and cool
colors on the other. Play new version of “Red Light, Green Light” to identify warm and cool
colors in the room. Prompts: There are lots of ways to describe color. One way is to describe its
“temperature.” Gesturing to warm colors: Where do you find these colors in nature? (sun, fire,
desert) These colors are called warm colors. Gesturing to cool colors: What cool things in nature
have these colors? (water, ice, shady trees). Revised “Red Light, Green Light” game: Instead of
leader calling out the expected prompts, the leader calls out “warm color” or “cool color.” When
the leaders calls out a “warm color” the students find and touch something with a warm color in
the room. Vice versa for “cool color.” The last person to find something the appropriate color to
touch is “it” the next round.
Student: Identifies warm and cool colors in their environment.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based teacher checklist (room scan)
5. Guides students in analyzing art, looking for the ways warm and cool colors draw
attention to each other: TAM: Fay Jones, Body Fires; SAM: Jacob Lawrence, The Studio,
Native American, Tlingit, Yeihl Nax’in; Arshile Gorky, How My Mother’s Embroidered Apron Unfolds
in My Life. Prompts: Where does your eye go first in this painting? Why do you think it goes there
first? Which colors seem to jump up at you? Which seem to move back? Warm colors often seem
to advance or come forward in a painting, and cool colors often seem to recede. Can you find
places in these paintings where this is true for you? When you place a warm and a cool color right
next to each other, they draw attention to each other and create an area of emphasis or
dominance in the painting. Can you find a place in one of these paintings that draws your
attention—where the artists has placed warm and cool colors right next to each other?
(Remember that all people see color differently, so there may be different answers from different
classmates.)
Student: Participates in analysis of art.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based teacher checklist (room scan)
6. Defines non-representational art. Facilitates students making non-representational
paintings, juxtaposing warm and cool colors. Prompts: (looking at museum art-Gorky painting).
Can you find anything in this painting you recognize? Art in which the artist uses colors and
fantastic shapes that do NOT refer to anything in life is called nonrepresentational. “Represent”
means to suggest something from life, so “non-representational” means the opposite. We are
going to make non-representational paintings in which we will choose to emphasize certain
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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shapes by painting them with warm colors, and then surround them with cool colors. First lightly
sketch fantastic shapes, then paint.
Student: Makes non-representational sketch and then paints by juxtaposing warm and color
colors for emphasis.
7. Leads students through a critique process. Prompts: How did you give emphasis to one
of your most fantastic shapes? How did you select your cool color for the space around it? How
did you refine your painting before completing it?
Student: Discusses finished painting with classmates.
Embedded Assessment: Criteria-based teacher checklist; peer critique, reflection
Vocabulary
Art: cool colors,
emphasis/
dominance, nonrepresentational art,
primary colors,
secondary colors,
tertiary colors, warm
colors
Museum:
Tacoma, WA
Tacoma Art Museum
Fay Jones, Body Fires
Materials
(See CD for images)
Seattle, WA
Seattle Art Museum
Jacob Lawrence, The Studio
Native American, Tlingit, Yeihl Nax’in
WA Essential Learnings & Frameworks
AEL 1.1 concepts: warm and cool colors, nonrepresentational art
AEL 1.1.2 principles of organization:
emphasis/dominance
AEL 1.2 skills and techniques: painting to an
edge/line, watercolor painting
(See CD for images)
Art: pencils, watercolor paint, small and medium round
brushes, flat brushes, small wash brushes for watercolor,
watercolor paper 9x12 in. for color wheels, 6x9 in. for study
paintings
Classroom: color wheel poster, individual color wheels,
color wheel templates, rulers
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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ARTS IMPACT INSTITUTE LESSON PLAN
VISUAL ARTS LESSON – Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
PERSONAL ASSESSMENT WORKSHEET
Student
Correctly
labels
and
paints 3
primary
colors
Color Theory
Correctly labels
Correctly labels
and mixes 3
and mixes 6
secondary
tertiary colors,
colors,
approximates
approximates
color wheel
color wheel
(Grades 3-5)
Composition and Emphasis/Dominance
Creates nonPaints selected
Fills
representational
shapes (for
background
composition
emphasis) with
with cool colors
warm colors
Total
5/6
Criteria-based Reflection Questions:
Self-Reflection:
Which colors were the greatest challenges to mix? What techniques did you develop to mix
colors?
How did you choose which shapes to emphasis?
Peer to Peer: Which shapes seem to be emphasized or dominant in a classmate’s painting?
Name:
Date:
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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ARTS IMPACT INSTITUTE LESSON PLAN
VISUAL ARTS LESSON – Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
ASSESSMENT WORKSHEET
Students
Correctly
labels
and
paints 3
primary
colors
Color Theory
Correctly labels
Correctly labels
and mixes 3
and mixes 6
secondary
tertiary colors,
colors,
approximates
approximates
color wheel
color wheel
(Grades 3-5)
Composition and Emphasis/Dominance
Creates nonPaints
Fills
representational
selected
background
composition
shapes (for
with cool
emphasis)
colors
with warm
colors
Total
5/6
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
Total
Percentage
Criteria-based Reflection Questions: (Note examples of student reflections.)
Self-Reflection:
Which colors were the greatest challenges to mix? What techniques did you develop to mix
colors?
How did you choose which shapes to emphasis?
Peer to Peer: Which shapes seem to be emphasized or dominant in a classmate’s painting?
Thoughts about Learning:
What prompts best communicated concepts? Were there any lesson dynamics that helped or hindered
learning?
Lesson Logistics:
What classroom management techniques supported student learning?
Teacher:
Date:
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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ARTS IMPACT FAMILY LETTER
VISUAL ARTS LESSON – Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
Dear Family:
Today your child participated in a visual art lesson. We learned about color mixing by creating a color
wheel. Then we painted a non-representational composition. Non-representation means the
painting doesn’t refer to any subject in life, so the shapes and colors come from our imaginations.

We made a color wheel, and painted the sections with three primary colors (red, blue, yellow)
and three secondary colors (orange, green, violet). Tertiary colors are intermediate colors
that can be created by mixing a primary and a secondary color together: red-orange and yellow
orange, yellow-green and blue-green, and red-violet and blue-violet.

We talked about how the color wheel shows us the warm colors grouped together on one side
and the cool colors grouped together on the opposite side. Warm colors are warm by
association with warm objects (fire, sun, desert); cool colors are cool by association with cool
objects (ocean, forests, ice).

We learned that warm colors often seem to come forward in a painting and that cool colors seem
to go back (recede). Artists can draw our attention to certain areas in their compositions by
placing warm colors right next to cool colors.
At home you could talk about all the different colors you used to decorate. Are they warm or cool colors?
Primary colors? Secondary colors? How do you draw attention to certain parts of your home with colors?
Enduring Understanding
Warm and cool colors placed next to each other
can draw our attention and create an area of emphasis.
Arts Impact Core 1 – Arts Foundations Summer Institute – Visual Arts: Color Mixing/Fantastic Shapes in Painting
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Primary and Secondary Color wheel Template
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Primary, Secondary and Intermediate/Tertiary Color wheel Template
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