Lines, Shapes and Colours
Primary 2 · Creative Arts
Lines, Shapes and Colours
Lesson 2 of 3
13 min
Let's begin
Keza is painting at school. She wants a big orange sun in the corner of her page.
She looks in the paint box. Red. Yellow. Blue. There is no orange anywhere!
Her friend leans over and smiles. 'You can make orange,' she says. 'Colours can be mixed, like ingredients in a cooking pot.'
Today you will learn that magic. Three colours can give you many more.
Look at these three: red, yellow and blue.
Try as hard as you like. Mix anything you want. You still cannot make red. You cannot make yellow. You cannot make blue.
They are the colours you must start with. We call them the primary colours. Primary means first.
Red, yellow, blue. Say it three times. With only those three you can build a whole painting.
Keza needs orange for her sun. Watch exactly what she does.
Step 1 She puts a blob of yellow on her plate.
Step 2 Right next to it she puts a smaller blob of red. Less red than yellow.
Step 3 She pushes the two blobs together with her brush and stirs, round and round and round.
Step 4 She looks at the plate. The yellow has gone. The red has gone. In their place there is a bright orange!
Red and yellow made orange. Keza paints her sun and it glows.
The same magic works with the other pairs of primary colours.
Yellow and blue make green. Mugisha needs green for banana leaves. He stirs yellow and blue together, and green appears on his plate.
Blue and red make purple. Uwase needs purple for a passion fruit. She stirs blue and red together, and purple appears.
Orange, green and purple have a name too. They are the secondary colours. Secondary means second: they come after the primaries, because somebody has to make them.
Now you can say the rule yourself: mix two primary colours and you get one secondary colour.
Your mix does not have to be half of one and half of the other. The colour you use more of is the colour that wins.
So if your orange looks too red, add more yellow. If your green looks too blue, add more yellow as well.
Always add slowly, a tiny bit at a time. You can put more colour in, but you can never take colour back out.
Warning
Do not stir all three primaries into one blob. Red and yellow and blue together give you a muddy brown!
Mix two colours at a time, and wash your brush before you start the next mix.
Tip
Three mixes to keep in your head
Every secondary colour hides between the two primaries that made it.
Answer in your head first, then tap Show answer to check.
You are painting the grass everyone cut at umuganda. You need green. Which two colours do you mix?
Answer: Yellow and blue. Start with the yellow and add the blue slowly.
You stir blue and red together. What colour is on your plate now?
Answer: Purple. Blue and red always give purple.
Can you mix two colours to make yellow?
Answer: No! Yellow is a primary colour. It is one of the three you cannot make, so you must start with it.
Your orange has come out dark, almost red. What should you add?
Answer: More yellow, a little at a time. Too much red made the orange go dark.
Habimana stirs red, yellow and blue all together in one blob. What does he get?
Answer: A muddy brown. Only two colours at a time!
What you learned today
Quick check
Match each mix to the colour it makes.
Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
