Everyone knows you want a set of markers with as many colors as you can afford. The same goes for crayons, colored pencils, pastels… anything that comes in sets. But for some odd reason, students always think they should only get out one tube of paint on their palette at a time.
Aproach
Student: “It’s a green vase, so all I need is green!”
You: “Always have all of your pigments on your palette – so you can make any color you can think of!”
No only is the phthalo green in our set a mixing color (one that is so strong that it is specifically made to mix, not to use straight), but it is only one green.
Nothing is one color to our vision. If you wanted to paint a wall green, then you need one color of green to paint it with. But if you then wanted to paint a picture of that wall, you’d need 100 different variations of greens to do so.
So, the challenge for teachers is to convince a student that a green vase is not made with green only, or even green and white. The challenge is to convince each student that having only 2 or 3 colors on their palette is a very poor palette.
Here is a quick pocket pointer that can help, anytime you see a student painting with a poor palette.
Demo
Find a brightly colored object, preferably a shiny one that can reflect well. Show the student the back of your hand.
Teach
“How many colors do you see on my hand? A lot, right?! There are Bluish colors, greenish colors, purplish colors, and many brownish colors… there are orange colors, reds … and variations of all of these. Look at this object (any brightly colored object). It seems a lot simpler than my hand, but it also has many, many variations. There are not only light and dark versions, but the object reflects other colors from the room. You can see the color
The fact is, that you can’t accurately paint well unless you have all your colors available. You can make a color warmer unless there is yellow on your palette, and you can’t make a green darker unless you have red, it’s opposite.
Did you know that you can add every single color to every single color, to make beautiful versions of them? You won’t know how a purple shaded green would look unless you had purple on your palette.
[You can look at the colors they are using and expound on these]
You need a rich palette of colors, just like having the biggest set of markers would be better than trying to work with only 2 or 3. Right now your palette is poor. Make it rich!”
EXCEPTION: When making daytime bright blue sky colors, there are usually only a few colors needed. Both blues, white, and sometimes a little burnt umber or bright red to make grays from the blues. If you see someone doing this, don’t correct them with the above example, but remind them to get out all their colors once they finish the sky.
Our Supplies
Here’s a post in our EXTRAS > ESSENTIALS section that goes through our entire recommended supply list, including a detailed explaination of each of our 10 pigments of acrylic paints. There’s even a printable pigment list PDF for you.
Pocket Pointers
Learn these short mini-lessons that are needed "on the fly", whenever you have a student who needs some specific help.
