Colour can be bright or dull, warm or cold, natural or made artificially. It can be blue, red, yellow, purple, orange, green and much more! Sometimes you may hear people call something a 'hue'. Hue is just another name for pure colour that does not have white or black in it.
Tiny particles of colour called pigments are what gives plants, animals, humans and minerals their colouring. They are also used to colour paints and dyes made by humans. Pigments absorb colours but reflect their own colour. What this means is that a green pigment will absorb all colours except green, which it will reflect. When you mix paints or pigments different colours are absorbed and reflected and this is how we can create lots of different colours.
The Everywhere colour series is designed for children and will cover lots of things about colour and has projects you can try out for yourself to find out how things work. Colour is magical and lots of fun to experiment with... enjoy!
Teachers/schools - you are welcome to copy any or all of the Everywhere colour series resources and use them with your students to further their knowledge of colour.
Everywhere colour series |
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Changing colour
Some colours can seem almost invisible but will change when they are heated. Years ago prisoners used to write secret notes using their saliva or sweat and smuggle them out to friends and family. The notes would look like a blank piece of paper. When the other person received the notes they would heat them up and the words that had been written would change colour so they could be read... more.
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Colour and nature
The colours we see outside change each day and
throughout the day depending on the amount of light.
On a sunny day everything looks brighter and more
colourful. On a rainy day everything looks duller and
greyer. At night everything looks grey or black depending
on the moonlight and artificial lighting... more.
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Colour in art
You can use lots of different colours and mediums to
create artwork. Sometimes you might use dry mediums,
such as crayons and chalk. Sometimes you might use wet
mediums, such as paints and dyes. Sometimes you might
use both together! Each type of medium will affect the
colour you see and also how you create the picture... more.
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Colour of light
The primary colours for paint are yellow, red and blue.
When you are working with things that create light, such
as torches, the three primary colours are red, green and
blue. Yellow is not a primary colour of light... more.
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Colour wheels
The best way to learn how colours work together is
with a colour wheel. Colour wheels are made using the
colour spectrum and help decorators put colour schemes
together... more
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Decorating colour
Humans respond to colour. Yellow reminds us of happy
faces and smiles, white is neutral and restful, red can
be exciting. By changing the colours in a room, we can
change a room from a happy room into a cold room. Think
about some of the places you may have been recently
and what colours they were painted... more
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Dissolving colour
If you have ever left a note in your pocket when your
clothes have been washed you will know that colours
can dissolve making it impossible to read the note. Each
colour pigment is made up using a mixture of colours.
The human eye can’t see the individual colours unless the
colour is split. You can split colour using chromatography,
which dissolves colours to see what they contain... more
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Dotted colour
Television and computer screen colours work differently
to paint colours. Instead of having red, blue and yellow
as the primary colours, the primary colours are red, blue
and green. This is because the screens work with coloured
light rather than paints to get their colours... more
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Everywhere colour
Human eyes have approximately 12 million rods and 7
million cones in them – that’s a lot of things in a small
place! These help us to see everything around us,
including sending colour information to our brain so that
it can help us to see colour... more
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Eyes and rainbows
Sometimes when it rains the sun shines. This is when you
may see a rainbow... more
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Filtering colour
When you go to concerts or shows you will often see
huge spotlights shining onto the stage with different
coloured cellophane taped over the front of the light... more
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Illusion and tricks with colour
Colours can look different depending on lots of things,
such as how much there is of the colour and what other
colours are next to them. This section shows you lots
of different ways that colours trick our eyes... more
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Making colour - Dye
Dyes are used to colour many of the things we see and
use everyday, including food, hair and clothing. Dyes
can be natural (made from plants) or synthetic (made by
humans). Natural dyes are usually the strongest dyes... more
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Mixing colour
Visit a paint shop, like your local Resene ColorShop, and
you will see thousands and thousands of colours. All of
these colours are made by mixing the pigment primary
colours of red, yellow and blue in different amounts.
Every variation in the colours gives you a different paint
colour. If you add a little more yellow, the colour will
appear yellower. Add more blue and it will become
bluer... more
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Reflecting colour
Tiny particles of colour called pigments are what gives plants,
animals, humans and minerals their colouring. They are also
used to colour paints and dyes made by humans. Pigments
absorb colours but refl ect their own colour... more
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Safety colour
Warm colours advance and appear closer than they are,
while cool colours recede and appear further away.
Brighter colours also appear closer as they stand out
against other duller colours. To keep people safe, colours
such as bright orange and bright red are used as safety
colours... more
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Seeing colour - Animals
We see everything around us in various colours but many
animals can’t see colour as humans do and instead they
see everything in shades of grey. For example, cats can’t
detect colour at all, so they see everything in black, white
or tones of grey... more
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Seeing colour - Humans
Humans can see differences in the wavelengths of colours.
This helps us to tell colours apart. Special cells on the
retinas of our eyes detect red, green and blue colours in
light, as well as black and white, which helps us see at
night when there is little light... more
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