Part 9

No detailed rehearsal of the lessons for this work is necessary to enable a teacher who has pursued the course of instruction thus far to complete it in a logical way, and relatively little time will be required by the pupils to become sufficiently familiar with these tones for practical purposes, because of their more acute color perception which will be developed at this period.

The Work of Cutting and Pasting.

In the study of color the work of cutting and pasting designs in educational colored papers affords the earliest and best practical expression of the color feeling which has been acquired and stimulates the further development of color perception. The order in which the use of these papers can be most profitably taken up in the occupations of cutting and pasting may be determined by a careful consideration of the subject of harmonies as explained quite fully in the foregoing section entitled "Practical Experiments," Pages 67 to 73.

The first in order is Contrasted Harmony, in which cut papers in one color may be mounted on a ground of some passive color as white or gray. In selecting the gray, analogy is usually preferable to contrast, while neutral gray is fairly safe for all colors. According to this suggestion the warm grays may be used with the warm colors and the cool grays with the cool colors, and in a majority of the cases the lightest tone of gray is preferable.

Without question Dominant Harmonies or the arrangement in families are the most profitable and safe for early practice. In this class a light tint may be used for the background on which to mount any of the other tones of the same scale. Beyond these two classes of harmonies the order of presentation must be determined by the teacher. If the complementary is attempted with simple geometrical forms a light tint may most safely be selected for a background in the least aggressive of the two colors and the design or pasted forms in some of the complementary tones other than the normal color. Do not attempt to combine full complementary colors in elementary work.

The Analogous Harmony may be used in simple designs with beautiful effects when judicious selections are made, but owing to the latitude necessarily involved in the definition of this class of combinations the children cannot very early be trusted to make their own selections.

It is evident that nothing can be attempted in the Perfected Harmonies in any of the ready-cut forms, but beautiful results can be produced in this class with well-drawn and accurately cut ornamental designs in colored papers, which may even surpass in strength and beauty any effects which can be produced in water colors such as can be used by the children.

For earliest practice in making designs in colored papers the ready cut forms of the kindergarten, technically called "parquetry papers" are very convenient and may be procured either with or without gum on the back. These are prepared in various geometrical forms based on the one-inch standard, among which the most useful for pasting decorative designs are the circle, half-circle, square, half-square and equilateral triangle. Where models and tablets are used in form study the tablets may serve as patterns from which the children can mark out the papers which they can then cut for themselves, and thus the oval and ellipse may be added to the forms, and also practice in accurate cutting secured.

In the use of tablets as patterns the outlines should be made on the backside of the paper, by holding the tablet in place with one finger and working carefully around it with a well-pointed pencil. The marking to the pattern and cutting to the line provides valuable elementary practice in manual training. As it is the prime object of these papers to treat of color no attempt is here made to give directions for designing units of ornament or for folding and cutting designs. All such exercises furnish the best possible practice in both designing and manual work, but they belong more directly to the department of drawing and are fully treated in the hand books explaining modern systems of drawing. We offer here a number of simple arrangements of such forms as may be found in ready-cut papers or may be marked from the form study tablets as before mentioned, with the addition of a few other figures which involve some very simple designs for free-hand cutting.

A Variety of Designs.

The accompanying illustrations show a number of simple arrangements of such forms as are found in ready-cut papers or may be marked from the form study tablets already mentioned, with the addition of a few other figures which include some very simple forms requiring free-hand cutting. Suggestions for more elaborate designs and specific directions for paper cutting can be found in elementary books treating of decorative drawing and those devoted solely to paper cutting.

Figs. 17 to 25 show arrangements of one-inch kindergarten parquetry papers in one color, used as units to form border designs in contrasted harmony on a white or a gray ground, in all of which there is repetition of form as well as color. A narrow strip of paper in the same color as the units may be used at top and bottom to finish the design.

Figs. 26 to 37 show border designs, each of which is made with one form in two colors or tones in alternation.

Figs. 38 and 39 show border designs in one color, with forms marked from the elliptical and oval tablets and cut by hand. In Fig. 39 borders are made by combining half-squares which may be used with or without narrow strips of the same color.

Figs. 40 and 41 are made by using one form with alternation of tone and of position. Fig. 41 is derived from Fig. 40 by laying the dark squares with the corners in contact and placing the light squares over them.

Fig. 42 shows alternation of form and color or tone, which is also the scheme employed in Fig. 43 in a design less simple with the addition of the half-circles.

Figs. 44 and 45 show two other simple and pleasing designs with alternation of both form and tone or color.

Figs. 46, 47, 48, and 49 comprise designs in two forms and two tones or colors, in which some hand cutting is necessary on the part of the pupils.

Figs. 50 to 54 are rosettes made from parquetry papers with the addition of a small circle or square at the center cut by hand.

Figs. 55 to 60 are principally hand-cut forms, and 61, 62 and 63 show surface patterns made from parquetry squares and half-squares.

Colored papers can be used more advantageously in decorative designs than in imitations of natural objects, for which water colors are much better suited, but some copies of natural flowers and autumn leaves have been made in colored papers which were exceedingly close imitations of water color paintings when seen at a little distance, rivaling in the case of the autumn leaves the best water color effects in brilliancy and depth of color.

There need be no definite rules governing the continuation of color study from this point by a teacher who is interested in the subject and has tried the experiments suggested in the preceding pages. The work will become very interesting at this stage, because now all sorts of material may be introduced for analysis and classification and from this point forward, to the highest achievements of the artist, nature will furnish abundant stimulus to color thought and investigation, if the foundation has been laid according to the true theory of color perception which it is the object of this system to explain.

Analysis of Color Materials.

A valuable and interesting phase of color investigation and color training may be found in the analysis and naming of the natural colors found in flowers, minerals and the plumage of birds. The necessity for a definite and adequate nomenclature which naturalists experience in this department of education has been emphasized by the publication within a few years of a book entitled "A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and a Compendium of useful knowledge for Ornithologists."

This book has been prepared with great care by Robert Ridgway of the United States National Museum, and contains a large number of hand-painted plates showing nearly two hundred colors which represent selections from three hundred and fifty names of colors which are given in English, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian or Danish.[D]

[D] A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists and Compendium of useful Knowledge for Ornithologists by Robert Ridgway, Curator, Department of Birds, National Museum. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1886.

The fact that a book involving so much technical knowledge and the expenditure of so much time and money was deemed justifiable is an evidence of the great need for some definite nomenclature.

In the introduction the author says: "Undoubtedly one of the chief desiderata of naturalists, both professional and amateur, is a means of identifying the various shades of colors named in descriptions, and of being able to determine exactly what name to apply to a particular tint which it is desired to designate in an original description. No modern work of this character it appears, is extant,--the latest publication of its kind which the author has been able to consult being Syme's edition of 'Werner's Nomenclature of Colors,' published in Edinburgh in 1821. It is found, however, that in Syme's 'nomenclature' that the colors have become so modified by time, that in very few cases do they correspond with the tints they were intended to represent."

The following are the opening sentences of the preface: "The want of a nomenclature of colors adapted particularly to the use of naturalists has ever been more or less an obstacle to the study of Nature; and although there have been many works published on the subject of color, they either pertain exclusively to the purely scientific or technical aspects of the case or to the manufacturing industries, or are otherwise unsuited to the special purposes of the zoologist, the botanist and the mineralogist."

In the same book the Chapter on Principles of Color opens with the following sentences: "The popular nomenclature of colors has of late years, especially since the introduction of aniline dyes and pigments, become involved in almost chaotic confusion through the coinage of a multitude of new names, many of them synonymous, and still more of them vague or variable in their meaning. These new names are far too numerous to be of any practical utility, even were each one identifiable with a particular fixed tint. Many of them are invented at the caprice of the dyer or manufacturer of fabrics, and are as capricious in their meaning as in their origin; among them being such fanciful names as 'Zulu,' 'Crushed Strawberry,' 'Baby Blue,' 'Woodbine-berry,' 'Night Green,' etc., besides such nonsensical names as 'Ashes of Roses' and 'Elephant's Breath.'"

These extracts from this valuable and interesting book by an author of large experience are quoted here to emphasize the practical necessity for more definite color education based on analysis and nomenclature.

With the color wheel or color top, the colors of flowers and leaves as well as all other objects in nature and art may be analyzed and named, and the names definitely recorded in the terms of a nomenclature based on permanent standards.

The following list of flowers and leaves of plants and trees with their analyses in terms of our nomenclature is taken from a recently published paper entitled "On the Color Description of Flowers," by Prof. J. H. Pillsbury, to whom the writer is indebted for some of the earliest suggestions regarding the practical application of the scientific facts of color to color teaching, and also for valuable scientific work which he has done including the exact location of the six color standards in the solar spectrum by their wave lengths:--

"With these standards to work from, I undertook to determine the color analysis of certain of our common flowers. The following results, will, I think, be interesting to botanists. The numbers given indicate per cent. of color required to produce the hue of the flower:--

Common forsythia, F. viridissima: Pure spectrum yellow. Fringed polygala, P. paucifolia: R. 48, V. 52. Wistaria, W. frutescens, wings: R. 11, V. 89. Wistaria, W. frutescens, standard: R. 9, V. 79, W. 12. Flowering quince, Cydonia japonica: R. 95, V. 2, W. 3. Wild cranesbill, Geranium maculatum: R. 28, V. 66, W. 6.

The variations of color in the early summer foliage is also interesting. The following analyses are for the upper side of fresh and well developed healthy leaves. It is not impossible that a little attention to these variations in the color of foliage on the part of artists would save us the annoyance of some of the abominable green which we so often see in the pictures of artists of good reputation:--

White oak: Y. 7.5, G. 11.5, N. 81. Apple: Y. 5, G. 13, W. 2, N. 80. Copper beech: R. 17, V. 2, N. 81. Hemlock: Y. 2, G. 9, N. 89. White pine: Y. 2.5, G. 11, N. 86.5. White birch: Y. 5.5, G. 11.5, W. 1, N. 82. Hornbeam: Y. 5.5, G. 12.5, N. 82. Shagbark hickory: Y. 4.5, G. 9.5, N. 86.

These analyses were made in a moderately strong diffused light with Maxwell disks of the standard hues referred to above."

These are but a few of the numerous flowers the colors of which may be perfectly imitated and consequently analyzed and named with the color wheel or the top. In fact for individual work in natural history the top is more convenient than the wheel and sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes, while it is a very fascinating occupation for child or adult.

In the use of disks for analyzing colors it must be remembered that every material color is some quality of some color in the spectrum circuit, and therefore may be matched with not more than two standard disks, either alone or with white or black or both. If more than two color disks, besides white and black, are used they will neutralize each other more or less, and a neutral gray or a gray and some spectrum color will be the result. For example, if yellow and blue in nearly equal parts are introduced in connection with red and orange, the yellow and blue being nearly complimentary to each other will produce practically a neutral gray, and the result will be the same as if only red, orange, white and black were used.

Owing to the recent advances in the art of dyeing there are some textile goods which are too intense in color to be exactly imitated by the disk standards, but this fact need not prevent a practical analysis of such colors, because by very slightly reducing with white the color to be examined the same color is retained, the modification making it, of course, somewhat lighter. Fig. 64, showing a small circle representing a disk of the material mounted on thick paper, illustrates this statement. Suppose we have a piece of rich brown cloth, so intense in color that when red, orange and black are combined in the proportions of R. 22, O. 16, N. 62, the material is still a little richer in color than can be made with the disks of the color wheel. If we introduce a small amount of white into the brown of the material we may hope to match it with the disks and this may be done by cutting a bit of fairly heavy white paper in the form shown in the diagram and loosening the nut of the color wheel slightly, after which we insert the point of the triangle under the nut so that when tightened the white paper may be held in front of the brown disk, as in the illustration. Trim the outer end even with the disk and then rotate. If the effect of the white is too great trim off a little from the side of the white paper to make it narrower, until a perfect match is secured.

The small disk in rotation is then of the same color but not quite so intense as before, or in other words, is a very deep tint of the color. In this way the Nomenclature can be recorded as follows: Brown 95, W. 5, = R. 22, O. 16, N. 62.

This result does not often occur, but the subject is noticed here in detail that no one may be in doubt when such cases do come to light, as they will sooner or later.

The aniline colors give some purples which are much more brilliant than either the violet or red which otherwise should by combination produce them, so that with these standards they cannot be made, but must be reduced with white, or possibly with white and black.

If a color wheel is not available many of these experiments may be tried on the color top, but not as satisfactorily, because of the accuracy necessary in cutting so small a disk in a woven material. In using the top for analysis of all ordinary colors, the best plan is lay the material on a table or other level surface and spin the top on it. If quite an accurate test is desired the cardboard disk of the top may be trimmed down to the size of the largest paper disk, so that there will be no intervening ring of light color to separate the color of the rotating disks from the material on which it is spun.

Practical applications of the color top are already being made, as for example, in the selection of house furnishings. For this purpose disks of the top are combined at home to produce the desired colors to match the wood finishings and papers or draperies in a partially completed room, the top being used as a guide in preliminary selections of additional materials from the stores.

If a number of colors are required it is convenient to use several combinations of disks, each set being slightly gummed together. In this way standards for various colors with a top spindle for rotation in the salesroom may be carried in a very small space.

The Bradley Colored Papers.

As every competent artisan must understand the use for which each implement is designed, in order to secure the best results with it, possibly a brief explanation of the principles on which the colors in the Bradley Educational Colored Papers are selected and classified may be of value. In the sample books of these colored papers there are four sections. The first section of the book, following the title leaf called "Pure Spectrum Scales" consists in part of the six standard colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, with two intermediate hues between each two standards, which eighteen colors form the central vertical column in the Chart of Pure Spectrum Scales shown on Page 41.

In addition to these eighteen normal spectrum colors, there are two tints and two shades of each, thus producing eighteen spectrum scales of five tones, in which the normal colors as indicated in the central column aim to be the purest possible pigmentary expressions of the spectrum colors represented.

In determining the number of colors to adopt in the preparation of the papers enough have been selected to furnish types of all the colors in the spectrum, and also the hues between red and violet, but at the same time the number has been so restricted as to secure a reasonably simple nomenclature of the intermediate hues. A hue of a color is defined as the result of the admixture of that color with a smaller quantity of another color; thus a hue of red approaching the orange is an orange hue of red, or an orange-red. If a small amount of red is added to orange the result is a red hue of orange, or a red-orange.

Therefore in selecting two hues between each two standards, rather than a larger number, the simplest nomenclature possible is secured, and one in which no mental effort is necessary to recall the color indicated by each symbol. For example, we have four colors indicated as R, OR, RO, O; red, orange-red, red-orange, orange; or more extended, red, orange hue of red, red hue of orange, orange. Thus by using as symbols familiar terms, no effort of the memory is required to recall the color indicated by each symbol, as would necessarily be the case if there were a greater number of hues and therefore more arbitrary symbols.

The use of rotating color disks on the wheel and the top by which an infinite variety of intermediate hues can be made and accurately named by the pupils reduces the required number of papers to those types necessary for first primary work, and thus prepares the child for the use of pigments at an earlier age than would be possible without such color instruction.

The second section of the sample book contains white, black and grays as indicated on the separating fly leaf. In these the best pigmentary expression of black and white are furnished. In material colors as found in industrial products, there are various so-called blacks and whites. For black there are blue-black, green-black, and brown-black; and in white, cream-white and pearl-white. Cream-white is a yellow-white and pearl-white a blue-white. In fine white papers either blue, red or yellow is generally added to the pulp to counteract or cover up the gray tone of the natural material. The standard black here presented is the best possible pigmentary imitation of a very deep black hole, as for example, the projecting end of a large iron water or sewer pipe of considerable length buried in the ground, which is the blackest thing known. The white is an imitation of new-fallen snow. Neither of these standards can be very nearly approached although we often hear of things as "white as snow" and as "black as night." In the same group and following the black and white are two examples each of the four kinds of grays: Green gray, warm gray, cool gray and neutral gray. A pure white in shadow is the true neutral gray and a perfect imitation of this is made by the rotation of combined black and white disks on the color wheel. If to the black and white disks we add a blue disk we have cool grays. With red, orange or yellow the warm grays are produced, while the use of a green disk gives green grays. In the papers two tones of each gray are furnished.

The papers found in the first two sections comprise all the colors necessary for earliest primary color instruction, and should become familiar to the children before explanation is made of the colors in the succeeding collections.

In the third section, designated "Broken Spectrum Scales" will be found a collection of gray colors or broken colors. As has before been stated, a broken color is a pure color mixed with a neutral gray. In the combination of pigmentary colors a tint of a color is the pure color mixed with white, a shade is the color mixed with black, and a broken color is a pure color mixed with both black and white, which is a neutral gray. Therefore if with red, for example, we mix a certain amount of a given neutral gray and call that the normal tone of a broken scale of red, for the tint in that scale we must mix with the standard red a lighter gray and for the shade a darker gray.

When a comparatively small quantity of neutral gray is combined with a pure color the result is a "gray color," as above described, because the color is quite definitely retained, but more or less modified by the gray. On the other hand, if a relatively small quantity of color is added to a neutral gray, the resulting color is properly called a "colored gray," because it is still a gray modified by color, and in this class we have warm grays, cool grays, etc., according to the color combined with the gray. The gray colors are quite generally termed "broken colors" and this seems a very useful practice, because it avoids the confusion of the somewhat similar terms "gray color" and "colored gray."