Elementary Color

by Milton Bradley

The Study of Tones.

It is unnecessary at the beginning to use the word tones with the children, as "light and dark" colors will be understood more clearly. The first lesson in light and shade may be given with some book bound in a bright color, as red for example, which is common in cloth bindings. For this experiment partially open the book and hold it vertically, with back toward the class, in such position that a strong light from one side of the room will fall directly on one cover while the other is in the shade. If properly manipulated this simple experiment may be made effective to an entire class by moving the book in various directions to accommodate the several members, so that at different times all the pupils may get very clearly the idea of light and dark colors in the same scale.

This idea can be more clearly shown by means of a simple model very easily made for the purpose. Take, for example, three pieces of standard red paper, 4×4 inches, and mount them on a piece of cardboard side by side, in a row. Trim the card parallel to the edges of the papers, leaving a margin of uniform width, and with the point of a knife "score" a line partially through the card from the front, at the joining of the papers, so that it can be neatly bent to the form shown in Fig. 16 which represents the model as seen by the class. By holding one of the rear edges with each hand the faces can be folded to different angles with each other and the model turned to different positions with relation to the children. Possibly the windows at the rear of the room may be partially darkened to advantage; they certainly can be if they have a sunny exposure at the time. The object is to give a fair daylight on the central surface for the standard, a strong light on one side to form a tint of the standard and a shadow on the other for a shade of the same color.

Fig. 16.

By a trial before school, in company with some other teacher perhaps, the best positions for different parts of the room as well as best lighting of the room may be determined in advance and thus such a success achieved with the first experiment that the whole idea of tint and shade may be impressed on each child for all time and definitions firmly fixed in his mind for these two most abused words in our every day vocabulary. Added interest may be excited by showing similar models in several other colors during the same lesson, thus avoiding the possible impression on any mind that the term tint and shade apply to any special color.

Tints and shades may also be shown very beautifully by some kinds of colored materials. Colored satin ribbons, folded or crumpled, and velvets and plushes give good object lessons. One of the most effective exhibitions of tints and shades may be found in a material used for upholstering furniture and technically called "crushed plush," which is a worsted plush embossed in figures and very changeable in its effects as its relation to the light is changed, giving at the same time very light tints and very dark shades in different portions.

Having thus shown how real tints and shades in nature are produced, the color wheel may be introduced with advantage. If it were practicable to use opaque colors in the school they could be employed to show that the effect of a tint is produced in pigments by mixing white with the standard color and a shade by mixing black with it, but while the mixture of white may produce the best imitations of some tints in nature, the same result does not hold good in the use of black to form shades, and black pigments are rarely used for this purpose, because they impart various untruthful hues, according to the colors with which they are mixed.

For this reason, and others which will appear later, the white and black disks of the color wheel are found to be better than any other single method for representing tones. In shades the black disk produces by far the best imitation of nature, and so does the white disk for more than half of the colors. But, as previously stated, there is an effect which has never been satisfactorily explained by which the tints of red and blue especially receive an unexpected violet gray tinge by rotation. Therefore in showing tints on the wheel it is well not to show very light tints of red or blue until the class has received some impressions of tones in other colors. In the orange and violet the tints seem to be practically perfect, and in the yellow and green not far from correct, but in the green they run a trifle toward the blue and in the yellow become a little gray or broken. But in the shades the black disk has done wonders for color instruction, particularly in making standard neutral grays which cannot be imitated by white and black pigments, and in determining the shades of yellow, as has been explained. See Page 36.

Therefore, after having shown actual tints and shades with the folded models, and perhaps the other materials suggested, place a colored disk combined with a white disk on the wheel, and in front of them a smaller colored disk of the same color as the larger one for comparison, and by changing the relative proportions show various tints. Then substitute a black disk for the white and show shades. If, for example, orange is taken, all proportions of both tints and shades may be shown very truthfully, the deeper shades being very rich browns. Having in this way impressed on the children the terms tints and shades, give them the paper tablets, Selection No. 2, in the deepest tints and the lightest shades, reserving the lightest tints and deepest shades found in Selection No. 4 for later use.