When the pupils have progressed so far that they can arrange the paper tablets to form the Chart of Pure Spectrum Scales in three tones and also the Chart of Broken Scales, they will be prepared to intelligently begin the use of papers in cutting and pasting designs in the several classes of harmonies, but before most effective results can be produced the lightest tints and deepest shades of the full chart of pure scales in five tones must be considered.
Chart of Pure Spectrum Scales Completed.
The entire mastery of these extreme tones will be quite difficult because they are so far removed from the standards, and the children can hardly be expected to recognize and name them when seen separately. If a pupil is able to correctly arrange them in connection with the other tones of the chart, his accomplishment will show a high grade of color perception. But these extreme tones are introduced because their use in the more advanced work of paper cutting and pasting produces stronger and more beautiful harmonies and a higher degree of color training than would result were the tints and shades nearer the standards in tone.
No detailed rehearsal of the lessons for this work is necessary to enable a teacher who has pursued the course of instruction thus far to complete it in a logical way, and relatively little time will be required by the pupils to become sufficiently familiar with these tones for practical purposes, because of their more acute color perception which will be developed at this period.
The Work of Cutting and Pasting.
In the study of color the work of cutting and pasting designs in educational colored papers affords the earliest and best practical expression of the color feeling which has been acquired and stimulates the further development of color perception. The order in which the use of these papers can be most profitably taken up in the occupations of cutting and pasting may be determined by a careful consideration of the subject of harmonies as explained quite fully in the foregoing section entitled "Practical Experiments," Pages 67 to 73.
The first in order is Contrasted Harmony, in which cut papers in one color may be mounted on a ground of some passive color as white or gray. In selecting the gray, analogy is usually preferable to contrast, while neutral gray is fairly safe for all colors. According to this suggestion the warm grays may be used with the warm colors and the cool grays with the cool colors, and in a majority of the cases the lightest tone of gray is preferable.
Without question Dominant Harmonies or the arrangement in families are the most profitable and safe for early practice. In this class a light tint may be used for the background on which to mount any of the other tones of the same scale. Beyond these two classes of harmonies the order of presentation must be determined by the teacher. If the complementary is attempted with simple geometrical forms a light tint may most safely be selected for a background in the least aggressive of the two colors and the design or pasted forms in some of the complementary tones other than the normal color. Do not attempt to combine full complementary colors in elementary work.
The Analogous Harmony may be used in simple designs with beautiful effects when judicious selections are made, but owing to the latitude necessarily involved in the definition of this class of combinations the children cannot very early be trusted to make their own selections.
It is evident that nothing can be attempted in the Perfected Harmonies in any of the ready-cut forms, but beautiful results can be produced in this class with well-drawn and accurately cut ornamental designs in colored papers, which may even surpass in strength and beauty any effects which can be produced in water colors such as can be used by the children.