Color Mixing:Colorants

What is a colorant?

A colorant is something, especially a dye, pigment, ink, or paint, that colors  something else. For the following activity, colorant choices include, tempra paint, food coloring, and water soluble acrylic paints.

What happens when colorants are mixed together?

Any two or more colorants  can be mixed to form different colors. Only three basic colors, called primary colorants are needed to create most all colors.

Primary Colorants (Colors) are cyan, magenta, and yellow.

I checked my art supplies this morning and found yellow, but no cyan or magenta. I replaced the cyan and magenta with blue and red respectively. These replacements will provide satisfactory results for this basic color investigation.Using Red, yellow, and blue for our three basic colorants (substances that give an object a color), even food coloring can be used.

Let’s Play and Find Out About Mixing Colorants

1. What colors form when the following colorants are mixed together?

Red + Yellow   = ?
Red + Blue        = ?
Blue + Yellow  = ?

What To Do:

1. Use the following procedure to prepare three colored test solutions. In a small container, use an eyedropper to add 3 drops of water to each container. Then, add the indicated drops of food dye (use squeeze bottles and carefully count the drops).

Test Solutions

Red Solution: 3 drops of red + 3 drops of water
Blue Solution: 3 drops of blue + 3 drops of water
Yellow Solution: 3 drops of yellow + 3 drops of water

2. In separate containers, using the colored Test Solutions prepare the following mixtures:

Note: Use one eyedropper from each colored test solution. Stir mixtures with craft sticks.

mixture 1: 3 drops of red + 3 drops of blue    [Red + Blue  = (purple)]
mixture 2: 3 drops of red + 3 drops of yellow [Red + Yellow   = (orange)]
mixture 3: 3 drops of blue + 3 drops of yellow  [Blue + Yellow = (green)]

MORE FUN WITH COLORS

Now for the foamy fluffy part. A friend introduced me to the idea of using shaving foam (not gel) as a medium to create colored designs in. Liquid acrylic paint was the best colorant.

Try this, then decide how the activity can be improved. Clues are given below.

Yes, this can be a bit messy, but the fun is worth the mess. To reduce clean-up time, cover the work area with newspaper that can be discarded.

1. Spray a very thin layer of shaving foam over the bottom of a paper saucer.

2. Using craft sticks, add different acrylic colors to the shaving foam. Do this by dipping the end of a craft stick in to a color, then move the colored end of the stick through the foam. Repeat using a different craft stick and color. Add as many colors as you wish.

3.Using a sheet of white cardstock, fold the paper sheet in half twice, first from top to bottom, and then from side to side. Unfold and cut along the fold lines to form four equal pieces. These pieces are just the right size for art created in a saucer.

4. Lay one of the paper pieces on the color streaked foam. Press the paper into the foam.

5. Raise the paper and lay it on a piece of newspaper to protect the under surface.

6. Use the edge of a second clean paper pieces to spread as well as remove the excess foam covering from the foam covered paper.

This one of my foam color mixing paintings.

Discover for Yourself

Change any one of the variables for the activity to determine its effect on the final product.

Challenge : A colorant can be defined as being a subtractive primary color. How can this be modeled?