Colour Literacy Exercise List


Describing colours

Free sort

Sort coloured tiles any way you wish!

Arranging hue families

Learn how to identify and arrange hue families

Arranging characters

Learn how to identify and arrange characters


Chromatic vs. achromatic sort

Discover the differences between chromatic and achromatic colours

Lightness/value sort

Sort hue families by the lightness/value attribute

Chroma sort

Sort hue families by the chroma attribute


Naming colours in the sorting set

Identify and name the coloured tiles used in the CHROMO sorting set

Character associations

What types of words do you associate with each colour character?

Household sort

Sort household items into their colour characters


3D Hue planes model

Map colour characters into hue planes and build a 3D model

3D Intermediate model - Placeholder

Lightness-Chroma model

Relate colour characters to lightness and chroma and build a 3D model


Odd one out

Test your knowledge of colour characters!


Experiencing colours

Colour diary

Create a colour diary

Surrounded by colours

Notice all the variations of colours in your surroundings

Scavenger hunt

Find a range of colours in your environment


Changing colours of nature

Notice and document how light influences the colours you see

Mood clock

Choose a range of colours that you associate with specific moods or emotions


Perceiving colours

Koffka ring

Explore the nature of contextual colour

Munker-White illusion

Explore the nature of contextual colour

Simultaneous contrast

Explore the effect of neighbouring colours


Lights on and off

What happens to colours when we turn the lights off?

Orange cube

Build an orange cube and notice how light affects colour

Changing spatial contexts

Notice how changing the spatial context affects a perceived colour


Examining the rainbow

How many colours are in the rainbow? If your response is ‘seven’ - take a closer look!

Exploring the spectrum

Create a spectrum, and see how many hues you can find!

Non-spectral colours & iridescence

Discover non-spectral colours when you experiment with iridescent materials.


Exploring coloured filters

How does looking at the world through a coloured filter change our colour perceptions?

Filtered light sources

Notice how perceived colours change under filtered light sources

Coloured light sources

Notice how perceived colours change under coloured light sources


Blindspot

Locate a part of your eye that does not detect light at all!

Wavelength

Create a visual demonstration for light’s wavelengths with a slinky!

Polarization

Create colourful compositions with polarized light


Finding afterimages

Explore afterimages

Flag game

Test your understanding of coloured filters!


Working with Colours


Simple additive mixing

Explore the simple additive mixing process with coloured LED flashlights

Optical mixing using spinning disks

Create unexpected mixtures using spinning disks!

Optical mixing using diffusion filter

Create unexpected mixtures using diffusion filters


Subtractively mixing opaque media

Explore the subtractive mixing process using pastels and acrylic paints

Subtractively mixing transparent media

Explore the subtractive mixing process using filters and watercolour paints

Comparative mixing

Explore 3 types of colorant mixing, and see how they produce different results


Comparing complements

Did you know there is more than one way to define a set of complementary colours?

Squares & diamonds

Choose a set of colours from an image and create an abstract visual equivalent