One of the first things kids learn to name and categorize is the colors. The apple is red. The sky is blue. They begin to select colors almost as soon as they discover making marks on paper. This color makes me happy. This color feels strong. This color scribbles out all the others when I am sad.
Teachers and parents can help expand this important part of expression by providing abundant color opportunities in kids’ activities and encouraging the use of imaginative color choices. Drawing materials can easily include crayons and colored pencils as many different shades as is possible. Watercolor and tempera paints can be mixed to make different colors…blue into yellow to create green, red into white for pink. Teach young artists the technique of mixing new colors on the lids of paint boxes or on plastic lids. Many times the mixing of colors is more fascinating than actually creating a picture with the paints. This is when “art is the process, not the product” makes perfect sense.
A few ideas for diving into colors:
- Kids love to learn the names of colors, They love words like turquoise, lilac and olive, especially when those crayons are added to the basic set, and when they know how to mix paints to create these new shades.
- Kids enjoy making up their own new names for color variations – zombie green, princess pink, peach, and sky blue are fun.
- Explore the paintings of great artists like Gaugin, Matisse, Kandinsky and Frankenthaler to enjoy their use of imaginative color.
- Share the fabulous kids’ book The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. “One day in class, Duncan went to take out his crayons and found a stack of letters with his name on them.” Each color complains about their workload, demands better treatment and offers suggestions. Red is overworked, gray is tired from coloring big animals like elephants and whales, black is angry that it only gets to be outlines. A fun way to expand kids’ understanding of color possibilities.
Celebrate children’s adventures into color. There’s no “correct” color for a horse…blue or purple is just as appropriate as brown or gold. And a Halloween picture is fabulous in purple and pink!
