Colour Wheel Presentation
Senior 3 · Fine Arts
Colour Wheel Presentation
Lesson 3 of 4
25 min
A colour wheel is a teaching chart, and a chart is only useful if it is accurate. If the segments are uneven, a tertiary looks closer to one neighbour than the other, and the opposite pairs no longer face each other. In this lesson you will construct the wheel with a compass, paint it in a logical order and present it as a finished sheet, ready for display or assessment.
Definition
Concentric circles: circles that share the same centre. A ring-shaped colour wheel is the space between two of them.
Segment (sector of the ring): one of the twelve equal parts of the wheel. Each takes up of the full turn.
Flat colour: paint laid evenly, with no streaks, patches or brush marks, so the colour reads as a single hue.
Presentation: the way a finished work is laid out and labelled for a viewer: title, layout, labels and neatness.
Compass, sharp HB pencil, ruler, set square or protractor, eraser, A4 or A3 cartridge paper, your mixing chart from Lesson 2, paints, a fine round brush (size 2 or 3) for edges and a medium brush for filling.
Why does stepping the radius work? A chord equal to the radius cuts off of a circle, because it forms an equilateral triangle with the centre. Six of them make . Starting a second time from a point further round puts the new marks from the old ones. If you prefer a protractor, mark every instead.
Paint each segment by outlining its edges with the fine brush, a hair's width inside the pencil line, then fill the middle with the medium brush. Let neighbouring segments dry before painting next to them, so wet colours do not run together.
| Criterion | Excellent | Needs work |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy of hues | every tertiary halfway between its neighbours; opposites face each other | tertiaries look like their neighbours; colours out of order |
| Construction | twelve equal segments, clean concentric circles | uneven segments, wobbly circles |
| Paint handling | flat colour, crisp edges, no white gaps or overlaps | streaks, bleeding edges, gaps |
| Labelling and key | all twelve names spelt and hyphenated correctly, in neat even lettering; P, S, T key | missing or misspelt names; untidy lettering |
| Layout | title, wheel, chart, key, name and date balanced within a margin | crowded or empty areas; items touching the edge |
Worked example: planning the sizes
Gatete draws his outer circle with radius 8 cm and his inner circle with radius 4 cm. How wide is each segment along the outer edge, and along the inner edge?
Outer edge. The outer circumference is . Shared by 12 segments: .
Inner edge. The inner circumference is , so each segment is wide there.
So what? Each segment is about 4 cm deep and narrows from 4.2 cm to 2.1 cm: large enough to paint flat with a size 6 brush and to outline with a size 2. A wheel with an outer radius of only 4 cm would leave inner edges about 1 cm wide, which is very hard to paint cleanly.
<em>Creating a 12 section color wheel</em>, from art teacher Katie Hosbach's channel. Watch how the twelve sections are set out before any paint is used, and compare her method of dividing the circle with the compass method in Figure 1.
Warning
Compass safety. The point is sharp. Carry the compass closed, keep the point on the paper, and hold the paper with your other hand away from it.
Pencil under paint. Dark pencil lines show through yellow and other light colours. Construct with light lines, and erase the guide marks inside light segments before painting.
Tip
Edges first, then fill. Outline each segment with a fine brush just inside the line, then fill. Paint yellow and the light tertiaries before the dark violets and blues, and rinse well between them.
Practice
How many degrees does each segment of a 12-part wheel take up?
Why does stepping the radius round a circle give exactly six marks?
In what order should you paint the three kinds of colour, and why?
A wheel has an outer radius of 10 cm. How wide is each segment along the outer edge, to one decimal place?
Ishimwe's finished wheel has streaky blue segments and pencil lines showing through the yellow. Suggest two improvements.
Studio task. Construct, paint and present your 12-part wheel on A4 or A3 paper, following Figure 2. Then use the rubric to assess your own work and write one target.
1. .
2. A chord equal to the radius makes an equilateral triangle with the centre, so it cuts off ; .
3. Primaries, then secondaries, then tertiaries. Each colour is mixed from colours already on the wheel and can be checked against the neighbours painted beside it.
4. .
5. Mix enough paint to a creamy consistency and lay it evenly with a flat brush, without going back over drying paint; draw construction lines lightly and erase them inside light segments before painting.
6. Self-assessment against the five rubric criteria, with a specific target such as "keep tertiaries halfway between their neighbours".
Display your wheels side by side as a class. Which wheels are easiest to read from across the room, and what makes them so: the hues, the neatness or the layout?
Sources and credits
