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This week's LabZone activity
Jan. 12, 2005
Experimenting With Colors
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright used the rainbow of colors he found in nature to make his houses feel pleasant and comfortable for the people who lived in them. In the fifties, he chose a group of his favorite colors and had them printed so that other people could use them in their houses. He called the colors the Taliesin Palette. Most of these colors were named after nature. The Taliesin Palette has Spring Green, Sun Tan, Raspberry, Shell Pink Midnight, Cloud White, Bluebird, Oak Bark, Sky Blue, Autumn Green, and Cornfield Tan. These colors reminded Frank Lloyd Wright of the soft and beautiful way colors blend together in nature.
The Japanese make beautiful colored designs on paper by folding and tying paper and then dying it. Paper dying shows how the primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—blend together to form orange, green, and violet. The softness of the colors blending together on the paper reminds us of the way colors blend together in nature.
You can order powdered food colors from the Maid of Scandinavia catalog, 3244 Raleigh Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55416 (800-328-6722). They are more brilliant than the liquid kind. Sumi-E paper can be purchased at art supply stores on a continuous roll or in pads.
Materials
- Several medium-sized bowls
- Clean worktable protected with newspapers or a plastic cover
- Red, blue, and yellow food coloring
- White vinegar
- Water
- 11 1/8-by-24-inch pad Sumi-E Painting-Sketch paper or 1 pad newsprint
- Paper
- Rubber band
- Marbles
Place the mixing bowls on the table. Add 2 tablespoons of liquid or 1 teaspoon powdered food coloring to each bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 1/4 cup water to each bowl. Stir to mix the colors.
Remove one sheet from the pad of paper. Handle the paper gently or it will tear. Fold it into an accordion shape. Fold the accordion shape in half and quickly dip and remove the center part from the red de. Unfold the paper and dip one end in the blue dye and one end in the yellow dye. Be careful not to hold the paper in the dye too long. It will soak up too much liquid and tear.
The red and blue dyes mixed together to make violet, and the red and yellow mixed together to make orange. If you dye the middle of the second paper accordion yellow, what colors will you get on the ends?
Fold a second sheet of paper in half twice, use it to cover a marble, and fasten it with a rubber band. Dip the entire thing in the red dye and then dip just the tip of the marble in the blue dye.
Fold a third piece of paper in half over and over until it is a small packet. Dip each corner of the small square in a different colored dye. Set the paper aside to dry slightly for about 15 minutes so that it will not tear when you try to unfold it.
Working over the table, remove the rubber band. Slowly and carefully unfold each piece of paper and spread it out to dry. You will see that each one has a different pattern made by the dyes. Set the paper aside to dry slightly for about 15 minutes so that it will not tear when you try to unfold it.
Continue to experiment with folding and color blending. When you are finished, save your color-blending experiments. They will make beautiful wrapping paper.
Reprinted with permission from Frank Lloyd Wright for Kids by Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen. Published by Chicago Review Press, distributed by Independent Publishers Group (www.ipgbook.com). Copyright © 1994 by Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen.
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