Diamond Color Wheel

Grade Level

9-10

Duration

8 class periods 45 minutes in length

Materials

Tempera paint (this teacher uses Sax Versatemp Tempera paint) in primary colors plus black and white, a variety of brushes, black railroad board cut down to 12×12 inch squares and condiment containers. Pallets, 12×12 low food storage containers to hold condiment containers of paint

Media

Tempera

Lesson Objectives

For this lesson, students will:
• Design and paint their own Diamond Color Wheel.
• Understand and apply basic color theory (primary, secondary, intermediate colors, tints, and shades) in their paintings.
• Develop good studio habits related to painting, particularly not wasting paint.

Introductory Activity

Introduce students to the color wheel and have them paint the color mixing practice sheet.

Lesson Process

Students draw one small shape and one larger shape using a white color pencil on the black railroad board. The teacher puts out some stencils, rulers, and compasses to aid in creating the shapes. Some students opt to draw the shapes freehanded. After the large and small shapes are drawn, students divide the paper, measure, mark halfway on all four sides, and draw a line using a ruler. They can use a protractor to measure and mark at 30 and 60 degrees in the first quadrant- repeat in each quadrant.

Students are then ready to start painting. See the Diamond Color Wheel, How To Draw and Label handout in the resource section of this lesson.
Big Diamond = Pure Hues (Primary, Secondary and
Intermediate Colors)
Small Diamond = Tints (Color +White)
Outside Diamond =Shades (Color + Black)