Color should be taught if possible from objects and pictures. The six
colors can be illustrated by fruits, as an orange, a rosy apple, a
purple plum, a red cherry. The children’s dresses, their eyes and hair,
can all be brought into a lesson on color. In spring and summer flowers
make charming illustrations, _e.g._, different colors seen in roses, and
the autumn-tinted leaves can be used likewise.
Then there are colors in pictures, trees, besides colored wools, beads,
tablets, etc.
Ask for flowers and fruits of certain colors, _e.g._, what flower is
yellow? What fruit is red?, etc. Also colors of birds and animals, and
let the children say what colors look nice together. In summer this may
be shown by arranging a number of flowers in a bouquet.
In the flowers themselves colors always harmonize, _e.g._, forget-me-not
is blue, and has a yellow center, because blue and yellow look pretty
together.
Spring flowers are mostly yellow, and have pale green leaves, for green
and yellow look pretty together.
The red poppy and blue cornflower look pretty among the yellow corn, and
there are yellow flowers among the corn also.
Harmony of color may be further illustrated by the dressing of a doll,
or a story of a little girl who was taken to the shop by her mamma. The
little girl was to have a new dress, cloak, and hood; what colors would
her mamma choose?
_Secondary Colors._--Teach that _red_, _blue_ and _yellow_ are the first
or _primary_ colors, from which other colors may be made. A child’s box
of paints and six small tumblers are required for the following
illustration.
Pour a little water into each tumbler, and mix a little red paint in
one, a little blue in the next, and a little yellow in the third. These
are the primary colors.
Let us see what can be made by mixing _two_ of them together. Take an
empty tumbler. Pour in a little blue water and a little yellow. Mix
together and the children will see that _green_ is produced. Now take
another tumbler and mix blue and red in it; this makes _purple_.
In another tumbler show that red and yellow make _orange_. “What
beautiful thing have you seen in the sky showing all these colors?” “A
Rainbow.”
This is a most interesting lesson, and if the tumblers, etc., are not
obtainable, the same experiment may be shown on a piece of white
cardboard. Paint the colors in stripes on the cardboard, first the three
primary, which should be allowed to stand; then the secondary are
produced by rubbing one color over another, _e.g._, paint over the red
with blue, and purple is produced. Over the blue stripe paint a little
yellow, and we have green. Over the yellow stripe paint red, and orange
is seen.
The primary colors are Red, Yellow, Blue,
The Red and Blue mixed will show Purple to you;
Mix Yellow and Blue if you wish to make Green,
Mix Yellow and Red, then bright Orange is seen.