Color Wheel Umbrellas

I found the inspiration for this project walking down the halls of my daughter's school. Since we are all very used to rainy days in Seattle, I thought this was a great way to reinforce the color wheel. I did this lesson with my 2nd Grade class to summarize a unit we had just completed about color. 

To prep for this lesson, I created a template of the umbrella shape, and traced it onto a piece of white tagboard for each artist. I also filled paint palettes with red, blue, yellow, and black tempera paint strategically so that there was space for the secondary colors. 

When the students arrived, we reviewed the color wheel, and talked about how overlapping can block our complete view of an object. I then demonstrated how to draw the portion of the person or animal (artist's choice) that was holding the umbrella. I broke the umbrella up into sections, and painted the primary colors first. I then chose students to help me figure how which secondary color went where, and how to mix the correct color. Each artist was instructed to add something to the drawing for each color of the umbrella. We imagined what might be flying around on a rainy, windy day! Finally, black tempera paint was used to create a windy, stormy background. These colorful paintings brightened up our gray winter days:)