Are you ready for an art attack?

MAKE A SPLASH

If you do manage to look up from your laptop, your plasma TV or your PSP, you will see that your city is a riot of colour this time of the year! Trees sprouting fresh, green leaves; the jacaranda or the laburnum in full bloom; the flower markets awash in colour; and the blazing sunset against a clear sky, there’s an amazing variety of colours on display – for free!

Cliched though it sounds, Nature IS the best teacher when it comes to colour and contrast.

Notice how flowers really stand out against their backgrounds of light green, dark green and brown? Flowers have many shades, and that’s what makes them noticeable. For instance, there are many shades of yellow in a chrysanthemum and red in a rose.

Colours go from warm to cool on the colour wheel. Colours like yellow, orange, red and green are warm colours. Blue, violet and purple are cool colours. Yellow denotes fun while green is for fresh, happy and organic. Ask yourself how certain colours make you feel. Did you know there is a psychology of colour which is used by creative people who make advertisements and films — especially animation films — to ensure that you respond in a certain way to the idea that they are selling you?

You can make a fun album in which you can start collecting small pieces of different coloured paper. Start sourcing your treasures from old newspapers or magazines, or even wrapping paper. Cut them into small and larger pieces according to what looks good to make a collage.

Paste them onto a piece of cardboard without gaps and see what emerges. Treat your collage like a giant jigsaw puzzle. You can even try the ‘overlap’ technique, where paper  with flecks of gold and silver offers interesting highlights. When your cardboard is full – with no gaps whatsoever – mount it on a plain sheet of black or white paper to give it an awesome effect.

Those of you who like to paint can use paints and make strips of different colours as shown in the picture (above right). You can also make it using different shades of the same colour.

Or you can keep it simple and white. You could use hand-made paper in different colours or you could unleash your imagination and skill on cloth. While painting on cloth, you will have to use fabric paint.

As you begin to notice different colours and shades, you will start making smarter choices when you are using colours. If you are painting on cloth, you could use it to decorate your room, by selecting colours that make you feel happy and cheerful.

Your ‘new and improved’ sense of colour will also help you make eye-catching projects at school as you begin to use co-ordinated colours for relevant topics and give colour codes for the headings. Colour makes life really interesting, wouldn’t you say?