Ice Cube Painting

Elements of Art/Principles of Design

Color: an element of visual art; the visible range of reflected light. Color has three properties: hue, value, and intensity.
Shape: a two-dimensional (flat) area enclosed by a line, square, rectangle, circle, triangle, octagon.

Vocabulary Words

Color Wheel: colors arranged in a circle to show color relationships.
Primary Colors: the basic colors from which all other colors are mixed: traditionally, red, yellow, and blue; no other colors can be mixed to make primary colors. 
Secondary Colors: colors that are created by mixing two primary colors together in equal parts: green, violet, and orange.

Materials & Supplies 

Advanced Preparation

Prepare the color ice cubes. Mix two parts tempera to one-part water. Pour into ice cube trays. Wrap the ice cube tray with tin foil and poke popsicle sticks into the paint ice cubes. Punch a hole through the tin foil so the popsicle stick is straight. Freeze the ice cube paint tray. Prepare enough color ice cubes for each student to have three ice cubes: one yellow, one red, and one blue.
 
Pre-cut card stock into a variety of shapes. Examples are hearts, clouds, circles, diamonds,and/or rainbow shapes.

Tips & Tricks

• Color mixing can be tricky because a deep red mixed with a medium tone blue comes out a very dark purple. A red mixed with equal parts yellow comes out looking more like red than the anticipated orange. Guide students to begin with the lighter of the colors and slowly add the second darker/stronger color until they get the hue they are desiring. 
• You can pre-test the colors and slightly change the primary hues to set yourself up for the anticipated secondary colors. 
• Use a bright turquoise or cyan for the blue.
• Use a magenta tone for the red. For this project you might consider mixing one and a half parts magenta, a half part red, and half part water. Magenta and yellow will create a nice orange. Test this out before you do the project, to make sure you are happy with the results.
• Consider having the students start with mixing two color for each pre-cut shape. Then increase the color choices and experimentation with more choices.

Discussion Points

Primary colors – red, blue, and yellow. These are the basis for creating other colors.
Secondary colors – green, purple, and orange. The secondary colors are made by mixing primary colors. Colors can be bright, dull, dark, and light. 
Display the three primary colors and discuss what things in their environment are yellow (lemons, the sun, bananas), red (apples, fire trucks, strawberries), blue (sky, water). 
Introduce the color wheel and tell them that a color wheel is a tool to help artists understand color.The color wheel shows how to create secondary colors. Discuss how when you mix two primary colors you will get a secondary color. 
Name the various shapes they can choose from to paint. Include students in identifying the shapes.

Reflection Point (Assessment of Learning Objectives)

Students can identify the primary and secondary colors.
Students can identify a combination of primary colors and the resulting secondary color.
Students can make secondary colors by mixing the correct primary colors.

Instructions for Lesson

1. Show the red, yellow, and blue ice cube paints. Tell them that these are the primary colors and today they are going to make orange, green, and purple using these three primary colors. Orange, green, and purple are called secondary colors.
2. Explain: Students are going to mix the primary colors to make secondary colors on white paper.
3. Explain: Students will be painting from the outside of the shape to the inside of the shape using primary colors. The outside edge will be a pure hue primary color. There will be an area where two primary colors blend to demonstrate the secondary color. The center of the paper shape will be the second pure hue primary color.
4. Demonstrate: Take a pre-cut white paper. Choose one ice cube color to begin with. Make a thick colored outline on the edge of the white paper shape. Take a second primary color and color next to the first color. Overlap the second color over part of the first color so it mixes a little bit to make the secondary color. Make sure to leave a little bit of the first color, so you can tell what the primary color is in the center of the shape. Notice what happens when the two colors touch or blend.
      
5. Take another pre-cut shape and do the same as in number 3, but now choose a third color working your way to the middle of the shape. This will produce a rainbow effect showing a variety of the primary and secondary colors.
6. Repeat with different shaped papers and different color combinations. 

References and Attributions

Adapted from Arts Integration Lessons funded by the Issaquah Schools Foundation in 2011. 

Notes for Educators

21st Century Thinking Skills
Observing, visualizing, comparing and contrasting, cause and effect, finding evidence, predicting and making connections.

WA State Learning Standards
(VA:Cr1.1.K) Creating-Investigate, plan, and make. Engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
(VA:Cr.2.1.K) Creating-Investigate. Through experimentation, build skills in various media and approaches to art-making.
(VA:Cr.3.1.K) Creating-Reflect, refine, continue. Explain the processof making art while creating.

Arts Integration Opportunities
Students make their own ice cube paints.
Science concept -liquids and solids. Discuss how liquids take the form of any shape of a mold. In this case the liquid will form to the ice cube tray. Make a comparison chart of liquids and solids. Put the ice cube paints in the freezer for the next day. Freezing the paint requires 3-4 hours (or overnight) to properly freeze. Discuss how the liquid became a solid. Discuss the ice attributes: hard and cold.

Please note:  These lesson plans are intended for non-profit use only. Use of these plans for commercial purposes should give attribution to the Issaquah Schools Foundation and be accompanied by a nominal donation at www.isfdn.org/donate. Thank you.

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