Colour Theory NotesWarm Colours

Cool Colours

Complimentary Colours

Split Complimentary Colours

Analogous Colours

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Compare and ContrastQuestions: 1. What is your first impression? How does it make you feel? 2. What kind of lines are used? How does this influence the mood? 3. What colours are they using? How do these influence the mood

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A.Y. Jackson, Blood Indian

Reserve, Alberta 1937

Emily Carr, Big Raven, 1931

Lawren Harris, Maligne Lake, Jasper Park

(1924)

Lawren Harris, Lake and

Mountains, 1928

Postcard Landscapes (Part 1)Materials/Set-Up:- Presentation- Compare and contrast sheet- Colour Theory Notes Handout- Artwork Analysis Handout- Art & Literature Analysis- Colour prints:

- Arthur Lismer, September Gale, Georgian Bay, 1921

- Lawren Harris, Maligne Lake, Jasper Park, 1924

- Emily Carr, Zunoqua of the Cat Village, 1931

- Emily Carr, Strangled by Growth, 1931

- Copy of poems/Excerpts:- The Skater by Charles G. D. Roberts

(1860-1943)- “The Onondaga Madonna” by

Duncan Campbell Scott- Letter IX: Excerpt from Catherine

Parr Traill’s “From the Backwoods of Canada”

- Letter X: Excerpt from Catherine Parr Traill’s “From the Backwoods of Canada”

IntroductionReview: Different lines create different moods:

• Q: What kinds of lines did we discuss? How do these different lines make you feel?

• Type: Zigzag=energy/excitement; curvy/arabesque=calm/peaceful/gentle; Straight = Firmness

• Weight: Thick, thin, dark, light = strength/structure vs. fragility/gentelness

• Direction: Diagonal = movement/energy; vertical = strength/firmness; horizontal = quiet/stillness

• Today: We will explore how lines and colours create mood Pre-Assessment:1. Small group discussion: [pass out Compare & Contrast Handout](3 minutes)

• Compare: A.Y. Jackson’s Early Snow, Alberta and Lawren Harris’s North Shore, Lake Superior (1924)

2. Whole Class Discussion: Record students responses on a T-Chart (5 minutes)3. Analyze understanding of colour theory:

• Can they identify the colour scheme (i.e. analogous/cool and Complimentary)?

• Do they know how colours influence mood?4. Discuss Colour Theory: [students will write notes on their worksheet - will go into

their sketchbook]a) Q: What is the difference between hot vs. cool colours? How do they

make you feel?i. Warm colours add heat = warm and inviting, uncomfortable/

oppressive, emotionalii. Cool colours chill = freezing cold, comfortably cool, sad, or even calm

and contemplative.b) Q: What are complimentary colours? How do they make you feel?

i. Opposite sides of the colour wheel. ii. Side by side = brighter/intense = energy and/or anxiety.iii. Mixed together = Mute each other = darkens an image = feel gloomy.

c) Q: What are Split complementaries = Includes the base colour and the two colours adjacent to its compliment

i. Same effect but not quite as intense iv. Q: What are Analogous colours? = Colours that are side by side on the

colour wheeli. Combination of colours often found in natureii. Harmonious

Transition to Body: Small group discussion - analyze a few artworks & talk about them as a group

Procedure: Part 1: Discuss the various lines and colours in the provided images, and see if students can determine what kind of feeling/mood these lines might portray.1. Break into groups of 4-5: Encourager, Note Keeper, Spokesperson2. Artwork Analysis: Pass around handouts to each group depicting3. Presentations: Students present their artwork and findings about the colours in

their artwork

Part 2: Art & Canadian Literature

1. Hand out envelops that contain a poem or excerpt of Canadian Literature1. Letter IX with Arthur Lismer’s September Gale2. Letter X with Maligne lake, Jasper National Park3. The Onondaga Madonna with Emily Carr4. “The Skater” with Emily Carr

2. Whole Class Discussion & Presentation1. Students present their poem/excerpt and answer the questions2. After each presentation discuss either…

1. Canada’s changing perspective/relationship to the land (place of fear/mystery/alive or something known and rugged.

2. The empty landscape recipe for the taking & national identity

3. Q: Who do you think is making these images & poems? Who is missing• Manifest Destiny + National Identity• The lone struggling tree in an empty rugged wilderness

4. Q: Where are the voices of the aboriginal peoples of Canada in all of this? Where do they fit into our national identity

• When they were represented = “Noble Savage”, violent, and primitive

• Justifications for colonization• Duncan Campbell Scott• Erasure of FNMI cultures from the land and Canadian Identity• Emily Carr and the “Vanishing Indian”

Next Class: apply this knowledge of colour theory in order to create landscape drawings that depict a mood

Colour Theory Analysis Directions: Get into groups of 3-4. Every group member will choose one of the following roles to

help promote group discussion:

• Encourager: You get the discussion moving and asks questions to keep it going

• Note Keeper: You will take jot notes on what your group is discussing

• Spokesperson/Summarizer : You will present the main ideas the group discussed

(make sure you're paying attention)

*everyone is responsible for participating in the discussion

Artwork Analysis: Look at the image provided to your group. Discuss the following questions. These will

help you analyze the work. The Note Keeper will jot down main ideas from the

discussion below.

1. What is your first impression? How does it make you feel?

2. Who (or what) is in the drawing?

3. What is the Colour Scheme?

4. What emotion/mood does this work express?

5. How does the Colour Scheme create this mood/feeling?

6. Artist Perspective:

A) Why do you think the artist made this work?

B) How do you think the artist views the land?

C) What is the artist trying to say?

Art & Literature Analysis Look at the poem/excerpt provided to your group. Discuss the following questions.

These will help you analyze the poem/excerpt. The Note Keeper will jot down main

ideas from the discussion below.

1. What is the poem/excerpt about?

2. How does the author view the land? (e.g. are they afraid of it, admire, love the

land?)

3. What do you think the author is trying to say about the Canadian landscape?

4. Does your analysis of the mood/feeling of the poem match the painting you studied?

Does it contradict it?

The Skater by Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)

My glad feet shod with the glittering steel I was the god of the wingèd heel.

The hills in the far white sky were lost; The world lay still in the wide white frost;

And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.

Here was a pathway, smooth like glass, Where I and the wandering wind might pass

To the far-off palaces, drifted deep, Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.

I followed the lure, I fled like a bird, Till the startled hollows awoke and heard

A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang, As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;

And the wandering wind was left behind As faster, faster I followed my mind;

Till the blood sang high in my eager brain, And the joy of my flight was almost pain.

The I stayed the rush of my eager speed And silently went as a drifting seed, --

Slowly, furtively, till my eyes Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,

And the hair of my neck began to creep At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.

Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near. In the deep of my heart I heard my fear.

And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued, From the white, inviolate solitude.

“The Onondaga Madonna” by Duncan Campbell Scott

She stands full-throated and with careless pose,

This woman of a weird and waning race, The tragic savage lurking in her face,

Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;

Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes, And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;

Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains

Of feuds and forays and her father’s woes.

And closer in the shawl about her breast, The latest promise of her nation’s doom,

Paler than she her baby clings and lies,

The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes; He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,

He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.

Letter X Lake House

May the 9th, 1833

“As to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is to matter-of-fact country for such supernaturals to visit. Here there are no historical associations, no legendary tales of those that came before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy, ghost nor bogle, satyr not wood-nymph; our very forests distain to shelter dryad or hamadryad.”

—Excerpt from Catherine Parr Traill’s “From the Backwoods of Canada”

Letter IX Lake House

April 18, 1833

“I state these things merely to show the difficulties that attend us in the fulfillment of our plans, and this accounts in great measure for the humble dwellings that settlers of the most respectable description are obliged to content themselves with that first coming to this country… every man in this country is his own glazier*; this you will laugh at: but if he does not wish to see and feel the discomfort of broken panes, he must learn to put them in his window with his own hands…. To understand the use of carpenter’s tools, I assure you come, is no despicable or useless kind of knowledge here. I would strongly recommend all and young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for the wanted it ”

—Excerpt from Catherine Parr Traill’s “From the Backwoods of Canada”

*glazier: a person whose profession is fitting glass into window’s and doors

Postcard Landscapes (Part 2)Materials/Set-Up:- Black and white printouts of Groups of

Seven paintings- Presentation- Prep videos- Pencil Crayons or Watercolour pencil

crayons

- Postcard sized watercolour paper (3 each)

- Pencils- Sketchbooks

IntroductionReview/Pre-assessment: • The artworks we discussed last class and how the artists represented the land. • How they used colour• Perspectives coincide with a colonial search for national identity that ultimately

sought to erase FNMI cultures and assert colonial ownership over the land.• Primarily a Western Euro-Canadian perspective of the land.• What is missing is the FNMI perspective - very different perspective; challenging old

narratives

Procedure: Robert Houle Presentation1. The Place Where God Lives (1989): Depicts a place in Manitoba known as “The

Narrows of Lake Manitoba”.A) Read Artist statement on https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/

artwork.php?mkey=41592B) Watch Videos from National Gallery of Canada

I. Identity: Nature and Culture (3min & 24 sec)II. I mix all my colours under natural light (0 min $ 32 sec) - talks briefly

about colour and emotion - though not in depth.III. Watch out for me: Changing the Canon (2 min &34 seconds) -

designating them to a place of the past2. Summary: Houle is reasserting both a personal and historical connection to the

land. And uses various colours to capture his feelings and impression of the landscape

Postcards Activity: Students will reproduce 1 painting by the group os seven on 3 postcards sized pieces of watercolour paper using pencil crayons and/or watercolour pencil crayons.1. Cut out the image you would like to use2. Rub the back of the image with graphite pencil till you’ve covered the whole thing3. Place on top of one of your postcard sheets 4. Trace your pencil over the basic shapes. This will transfer the image onto the paper.5. Repeat steps 2-4 two more times6. First Postcard: Choose 3 warm or cool colours. Colour in your postcard7. Second Postcard: Choose 3 split-complimentary colours. Colour in your postcard8. Third Postcard: Choose 3 analogous colours. Colour in your postcard

*As they work, students should think about the way they understand the land (place of fear, anxiety, mystery, personal space/source of identity, fun, calm, security, etc.) and try to incorporate that into their images.

Conclusion:Peer-Assessment: 1. Once everyone has completed their postcards, do a gallery walk. D2. Discuss in their groups how the different colour combinations changed the mood/

feeling of the landscape.

Self-Assessment: 1. Staple image into their sketchbooks2. Write in their sketchbooks

A. One thing they noticed about the use of colour in their own drawings and/or those of their peers.

B. What might be another way of achieving the same effect?