Color as a Noun: A New Technique to Teach Children

Parents realize that their child’s ability to recognize color is just as important as mastering ABC’s and simple words. Educators also use color recall to detect possible developmental problems, or color vision deficiencies (color blindness) when teaching preschoolers. (In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population – or about 10.5 million men – and 0.4 percent of the population female has a color vision deficiencies. The most common being red–green color blindness—difficulties in discriminating red and green hues).

Color ID can still be a hurdle for children in some instances, regardless of any learning/health issues. Recent findings suggest that a majority of parents and educators have been approaching the learning process incorrectly for sometime.

An article published in the July issue of Scientific American

proposes a simple language based solution—that color names should be used as nouns rather than adjectives when describing an object. The transposing of words at the inception of color teaching delivered improved comprehension significantly.

As adults we see color (usually) as a straightforward observation rooted in years of visual understanding. From a child’s point-of-view it can be hard to understand that an object that is burgundy vs. an object that is crimson, are still categorized as “red”.

To encourage better color matching recall, the solution is an elementary one. Color names should always precede the named object being referenced. For example, “That is a red ball,” not “That ball is red.” This simple technique will promote positive results to reassure any preschooler taking their first steps toward color naming.

Color from the Ordinary Made Into the Extraordinary: Fabian Oefner

From motor oil to evaporated alcohol Fabian Oefner wields these materials as if they were ordinary pigments found on an artist's palette. Known for driving a Ferrari into a wind tunnel to splatter with neon paint, Hefner does't shrink from using unconventional materials to pursue his fixation with color. Hefner's latest series “Photographic Paintings” was an outgrowth of observing the oxidation of b ismuth that he had melted on a hotplate. The cooled compound created amazing iridescent spectrum of color. Oefner quickly realized that a scraped off layer with a spatula would change the colors and that they would on be present for a brief tine. " You get those colors, which are essentially the colors of the rainbow,” he says. The photographs have a minimal amount of digital editing done to them. Hefner's work suspends your fools us by taken advantage of the interplay of poss...

Another Pinboard to Follow

Having resisted Pinterest for about a year now, I finally dipped my toes into the virtual pool of pinboards. My apprehension was truly misdirected and I've come to find that the concept of organizing visual images/links onto a virtual board has become a great teaching tool. After covering the typical graphic design topics such as typography, and history it was a natural move to include color among the related topics. So here is a link to my All Color Matters pinboard .

Color

Taking a more fine art approach, Color draws from past, and present art movements for aesthetic examples on basic color theory application. In depth chapters explore topics such as psychological/compositional effects, color relationships, subtractive/additive media, fine art and applied design. Where Color Workbook by Becky Koenig takes a more “hands-on” approach to color theory, Color presents the realities of color uses from a working artist's point-of-view. Other subjects mentioned include computer art, video, architecture, landscape design, sculpture, and clothing. This book does fall short in two areas; cultural influences and the omission of any suggested exercises for students to back-up the text. This normally wouldn't be an issue, however given the high retail price of $93.00, it would be difficult to justify this purchase to the budget minded student unless it can be aquired via used or heavy discount. Color (Sixth Edition) by Paul J. Zelanski, Mary Pat Fishe...

All Color Matters

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