DESCRIPTION: Students relate the concept of pitch in music to value on Black and White strips.

OBJECTIVES: Students learn the meaning of color value.

PROCEDURE: Each color that we look at in the world around us can have many different VALUES. When we talk about value we mean the darkness or lightness of a color. I'll give you an example. Please stand if you are wearing yellow (or pick a color that several students are wearing). Everyone else may sit down. Everyone look carefully. First, is everyone who is wearing yellow standing? Is everyone standing wearing the same yellow? Some are wearing pure yellow (the pure primary yellow). Who is wearing a dark yellow (perhaps shaded with black)? Who is wearing a yellow that is light (perhaps tinted with white)? There certainly are many kinds of yellow. The value of yellow can move from light to dark.

Since we already used the color yellow, we'll try something new and use the colors black and white. (Bring out the value strips from black to white.) Let's arrange these strips in order from the lightest value to the darkest value? (Have one or two of the students arrange the strips in order.) Let's look at the lightest value and choose the sound that best describes it. (quiet or loud; high or low) Now let's look at the next value and change our sound to match it. How does the sound change as the value gets darker? Does the sound get louder as the value gets darker? Does the sound get higher or lower as the value gets darker? Let's choose sounds for the rest of the values. Now that we have a different sound for each value, let's sing the matching sounds as I point from light to dark or dark to light. Now let's imagine that the different values were tastes. Which one tastes the strongest? (blandest, etc.) (Discuss how a color might smell.)

Notes: As you turn your discussion of value to a work of art, be sure to discuss how the color value works with shape, forms and lines to communicate its idea.

MINNESOTA GRADUATION STANDARDS:
(1) Read, View, Listen
(2) Write and Speak
(3) Literature and the Arts
(5) Inquiry

Age level: Appropriate for grades 3-5.
Artworks used: Go to works of art that contain various values of one color and use imagination in viewing an artwork.
Props needed: Value strips.
Related to Minneapolis Sculpture Garden: No
Notes: Good to do in conjunction with the activity Color Moods.


© 1998 WALKER ART CENTER