Challenge Four - Primaries!

It's great fun to use a box of 64, 72, or 108 crayons in a variety of colors. But the truth is, a box of 8 crayons, or even the 3 crayons given to kids at a coffee shop give you all you need to create a vast spectrum. You can prove this by using just blue, red, and yellow crayons to create a picture.

Materials

 * Blank paper
 * Blue, red, and yellow crayons or colored pencils

What to do
Set aside at least half an hour to play with the three crayons. Start with light strokes to rough in your picture. Experiment with the different color values you can create by overlapping strokes or making them very close together. Try using cross-hatching (vertical strokes in one color and horizontal strokes in another). Try making tiny dots or circles of color. Try drawing something very small 4 times its size, then stand a few feet back from your picture to see how the colors blend.

Why do it?
Drawing with color is no more difficult than drawing with a pencil, except that you have more options. Blue is called a "cool" color. Yellow is referred to as a "warm" color. Red is neutral. If you want to warm up a blue tone, add red. If you want to cool down a yellow area, add red. An equal amount of blue, red, and yellow will look grey, but adding extra red will create brown.

Expressionist painters took advantage of this technique to add vibrance to their works. Seen up close, Vincent Van Gogh's paintings have rather broad strokes of color that blend together when viewed from a distance. Georges Seurat was a master a Pointilism, using tiny dots of color which when viewed from a distance create tones of shimmering light. They had fun playing with these aspects of pigment on paper, and so can you!