Swatch Safari
EXPERIENCING COLOURS:
Colours are all around us
Match colours in your environment to a paint swatch
Details:
All ages
Time: 30 minutes minimum
Learning Outcome: To recognize how the appearance of colours change in relationship to the lightning conditions and the surrounding environment.
Colour Concepts: The appearance of colours is dependent on lighting and context.
Materials:
Background - Experience colours all around us
Background- Light is key for colour.
Background - Colour is contextual.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Choose a paint swatch with one colour to take on your Colour Safari.
Identify the Hue and Character of your swatch. Is it Pale or Dark? Vivid or Muted?
Go for a walk to find a set of five or more colours that match your swatch. and look around – at home, in your neighbourhood or anywhere.
Look at it in shade, and sun. Hold it facing the sky and facing you. Notice how the colour of the paint swatch looks different under different lighting conditions.
Find items that appear to match the paint swatch from far away. Then place the swatch against the items. Do they match now?
Take photos, if you can, of each match with your hand in the photo holding the swatch.
Optional: Post on a shared platform.
Vocabulary:
Questions & observations:
How common were colours of the same hue in your environment?
How common were colours of the same character in your environment?
If you do this exercise in different locations (e.g. home vs, school), what do you notice?
How did your swatch change in appearance under different lighting conditions?
What surprised you the most about your Safari experience?
More to explore:
Choose another paint swatch. Repeat the exercise.
Try the exercise in different environments – e.g inside vs. outside; school library vs. school gym; your home vs. school. What do you notice about the colours you find in different environments?
Related exercise:
If you have not yet done exercises using the sorting set, check out Naming Colours in the Sorting Set to become familiar with characters, and expanding the ways you can describe colours.
