Cool/Warm Contrast Painting

 

We will paint a warm colored background, add an object (we chose a flower) in cool colors and paint in the style of one of my favorite artists, Peter Max. Max is the artist behind many album covers and posters of the 60’s. His colors, bold lines and shapes, use of warm on cool and vice versa will delight your child and enhance their art. Check out some of Peter’s whimsical art on-line or at the library. Your whole family will be inspired by his rich palette and his beautifully imaginative world.

 

You will need:

White construction paper - we used 12”X 18”

Tempera paints in black, red, yellow, blue, purple and green

Pencil
Paintbrushes – one large, one small

Scissors

Glue

Paper plate for palette

 

  1. Discuss what colors evoke warmth (red, orange, yellow) and which evoke cool colors (green, blue, purple). After you have identified the warm and cool colors it is time to paint.
  2. Start with the red and yellow paint on palette. Protect the area with newspaper. On construction paper paint with big paintbrush from top of paper using long even strokes with red. At a third of the way down, without cleaning the brush add yellow to paintbrush and continue all the way to the bottom of paper adding more yellow each time. The result should be a painting that blends from red to orange to yellow-orange to yellow at the very bottom, like a sunset. Leave to dry.
  3. Using construction paper draw a large, fancy flower blossom (or other object-maybe a car, person or house). Keep the shapes of the flower bold. Draw three individual leaves on the same paper. Each object will be cut out separately so don’t connect them.
  4. Paint over all pencil lines with small paintbrush using the black tempera. Allow to dry. Using cool color palette paint the inside of your shapes. Try not to cover the bold black lines although they can overlap a bit. Once dry cut out each object – being careful not to cut off the black lines around shape. Glue flower near top of warm background, using black, paint a stem directly onto the background, assemble and glue leaves to stem. The contrast of the cool and warm colors along with the bold black outline of your painting will be beautiful and your child will be eager to show off this showy painting.

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