Colour my world

Explore colour theory and create a colour wheel

Student visual arts resource developed by The Arts Unit

Years 1 to 6 visual arts

What will I learn?

You will:

explore colour theory
identify the primary and secondary colours
discover more about the history of colour theory
create your own colour wheel.

Welcome to the class

Duration: 00:25

Video full screen - Welcome to the class
Video transcript - Welcome to the class

Before you begin

You'll need:

a device to watch video and audio
pencils, crayons, watercolours, paint or coloured paper/fabric (up to you!)
colour wheel template. Select and print the template that you would like to use. If you know all your colours, challenge yourself and complete the blank wheel. (Links to templates are included below in step 4.)

Explore

What are primary colours?

Primary colours are the 3 pigment colours that cannot be formed by any combination of other colours. All other colours are created by mixing these 3 hues (colours).

Red, yellow and blue

Primary colour wheel in 3 segments - red, blue and yellow

What are secondary colours?

Secondary colours are formed by mixing two primary colours.

Green, orange and purple

How to create secondary colours from primary colours

Mixing primary colours to form secondary colours. Red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, blue and red make purple

Watch The Colour Wheel video to learn more about primary and secondary colours.

The Colour Wheel

Duration: 03:39

Extension activity – what are tertiary colours?

Tertiary colours are the colours formed by mixing a primary and a secondary colour. They are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green.

Tertiary colour wheel

Identify

Look at what's around you, both inside and outside, to see if you can find primary and secondary coloured objects.

Which colours can you find that are warm or cool?

Have a go at answering these 3 questions:

Can you name all the primary and secondary colours?
Can you name the warm colours?
Can you name the cool colours?

Discover

Extension activity

Discover the history of the colour wheel.

Watch this short video on the history of the colour wheel.
Write down or tell someone 3 interesting facts you learnt. You might even share these interesting facts with your teacher!

The history of the colour wheel

Duration: 04:30

Create

Now that you know your primary and secondary colours, it’s time to create your own colour wheel!

Using the colour wheel template PDF and your pencils, crayons, watercolours, paint or coloured paper/fabric of choice, decorate your colour wheel.

If you know all your colours, challenge yourself and complete the blank wheel or draw your own.

Colour wheel template (PDF 246 KB)

Colour wheel templates.pdf

Extension activity – tertiary colours

Have a go at creating tertiary colours and adding them to your colour wheel. You can use the template in the colour wheel template PDF or make a wheel out of different objects like these created by Year 8 students from Corowa High School.