Lines, Shapes and Colours
Primary 2 · Creative Arts
Lines, Shapes and Colours
Lesson 3 of 3
12 min
Let's begin
Two children are colouring the very same drawing of a flag.
Byiringiro scribbles fast. His colour jumps over the black lines, and white gaps are left inside.
Umutoni goes slowly. Her colour stops exactly at every line. Her flag looks like a real flag.
They used the same pencils. The only difference was how they coloured. Today you learn how.
Umutoni has drawn an avocado. Now she will colour it green. Do it with her, step by step.
Step 1 — sharpen. A blunt pencil cannot stop at a line. A sharp one can. So she sharpens first.
Step 2 — build the fence. She colours a thin green band all the way around the inside of the black outline. Here she goes slowly. Her hand is careful. That green band is now a fence, and her colour cannot escape over it.
Step 3 — fill the field. Inside the fence she is safe, so now she can go faster. She strokes back and forth, and every stroke leans the same way. No white holes are left behind.
Step 4 — press lightly. She does not push hard. A light hand gives a smooth, even green with no scratchy marks.
Look at her avocado now. Full of colour, neat, and nothing has crossed the line.
Take a green pencil. Only one green pencil.
Press very lightly on your paper. Look: a pale, soft green.
Now press harder in a new place. Look: a deep, dark green.
Same pencil, two different greens! We call them shades of green. Light green and dark green are two shades of one colour.
Here is the rule: press lightly for a light shade, press harder for a dark shade.
Umutoni's avocado is neat, but it is flat and a little boring. Watch her fix it using shades.
Step 1 She decides the sun is on the left side of her picture.
Step 2 On the left of the avocado, where the light lands, she presses very lightly. Light green.
Step 3 On the right, away from the light, she presses harder. Dark green.
Step 4 In the middle she presses in between, so the light green slides slowly into the dark green with no hard join.
Now the avocado is not flat any more. It looks round, like one you could pick up and hold. Two shades of one pencil did that.
Tip
Fence, then field. Build the fence — the slow, careful edge — first. Then fill the field in the middle, faster.
Light hand, light shade. Heavy hand, dark shade. Always start light. You can press again to make it darker, but you cannot un-press a colour you pushed too hard.
Try each one with your pencils, then tap Show answer to check.
You draw a circle and you want to colour it red. Where do you start?
Answer: At the edge. Trace slowly around the inside of the outline first, then fill the middle.
Keza's shape has little white spots left inside it. What went wrong?
Answer: She coloured too fast and left gaps. She should go back over the white spots, with her strokes going the same way as the others.
Gatete has only one blue pencil. He wants a pale sky at the top and a darker lake below. Can he do it?
Answer: Yes! He presses lightly at the top for light blue, and presses harder below for dark blue. One pencil, two shades.
Your colour has slipped outside the black line. What will you do differently next time?
Answer: Sharpen the pencil, slow your hand down at the edge, and colour the edge before the middle.
Colour a leaf so that it looks round instead of flat.
Answer: Press lightly on the side facing the light and harder on the far side, and let the two shades meet softly in the middle.
What you learned today
Quick check
Colour neatly. Put the steps in order.
Tap the cards in the right order.
