Rainbow Colour Wheels

This colour wheel lesson holds a special place in my heart as it was one of the first lessons I ever taught my Junior High students my first year teaching.

I had ordered this book below: "The Art Teacher's Survival Guide" as I saw it in an art catalog and thought it looked good (I think the words "survival guide" was a big selling point for me, haha!) 

This lesson came from it and is called "Personal Rainbow Color Wheel".

I have students first fill out a color wheel worksheet just to reinforce all those colour theory terms.

On a long strip of cardstock, students design some type of shape and cut it out.

Then they trace it onto heavy white paper 12 times and then paint it using either watercolours or acrylics; whichever they prefer. I find most students use watercolours.

Once dry, students carefully cut them out them and placed them in a radial pattern on a large sheet of black paper. You want to make sure it's all nice and balanced before committing to glue.

These all turn out really nice and make a colourful and dramatic display.

Here's some Grade 8 results: