Teaching Colour Teaching students colour has always been fascinating yet challenging. I am sure that most of us would agree that it is one of the more interesting subjects within our curriculum. However the availability of good resources to get the subject across has in fact often relied almost entirely upon the ingenuity of the lecturer. One of the best articles on colour in a book by Mike Stevens has all its diagrams in black and white and that's a book that is not that old. Let's face it, there has not been much available. Making good visual aids, slides and the use of paper drawings, diagrams and the use of textbooks has been as good as it gets. Practical mixing of colour and the application of that colour to these drawings has been informative and a good learning tool for our students but surely in this day and age we could do better? The answer is yes we can. Using new technology we now have available a range of products to help the student understand the practical application of colour. Here is one worth looking at! If you have not seen the Resene Colour scheming software, Ezypaint then I suggest that you take a look at it. This program is being distributed by Martin Hobbs of the Scottish Association of Painting Craft Teachers with profits donated to the Associations. The program originates from New Zealand and utilises BS 5252 colours, which of course incorporates the full BS 4800 colour range. This software has ready made photographs of rooms and buildings which have already been sectioned or mapped to allow a colour change to be specified and viewed with the click of your computer mouse. This is both fast and very visual. I believe that this is the ultimate benefit. Nothing is left to the imagination; colours are accurately represented with the 3D image enhanced by the shadows or textures already apparent in the photographs. It is easy to import your own photographs from a digital camera or simply by scanning ordinary prints. After mapping individual areas, these can be colour changed by students to the usual monochromatic, analogous, complementary or split complementary schemes required. Useful as a teaching aid it is also possible to assess students on their understanding of colour theory. Colour print outs provide evidence of the proposed colour schemes for verification purposes or samples to clients in the case of a company utilising the software. The price being charged for this program (only £30) belies the sophistication of the software and has to be a must for colleges who teach the use of colour. See the review in this issue or in the P&D magazine. Jeff Brown Secretary SAPCT At Edinburgh's Telford College we currently teach B63504 Introduction to colour (producing colour schemes). The student has to apply the knowledge gained from the module on different colour schemes, Monochromatic, analogous, complementary and others to complete the assessment. The student has to have an understanding of BS4800 to complete the assessment; the assessment consists of 5 assignments, 3 internal and 2 external views. The assessments currently are in the form of paper, photocopies and the student have to colour the picture using paints and a brush. EzyPaint has a variety of advantages over this type of assessment. 1). You are able to introduce the students to IT training. 2). The visual impact of colour scheming is much greater. 3). When the student makes a mistake you don't have to wait for the paint to dry. IT Training You are making good use of your colleges resources, and giving training to your students with a computer programme that would make a useful tool for any up and coming decorating business. The program not only gives visual colour schemes but also allows you to use an Excel document if you wanted to include measuring and costing materials; it also allows a word document enabling an estimate to be produced and/or an invoice. This makes EzyPaint a very useful tool for Lecturers wishing to further the student learning experience. There is also an opportunity for your college to develop a short course once you are using this program. Demonstrations to local employers, of how to use the software, to help them and their customers when talking over future work. There are the possibilities of developing short courses on mapping or mask areas. Visual impact The visual impact of the computer-generated image is excellent compared to the paper copy (Picture 1&2). You can see that from the start the image is more realistic and relates more to what would be seen on a job. Student makes a mistake If you select the wrong colour on the computer you click a different colour and change it. Unlike the paper copy where you would have to wait on the paint drying before repainting the selected area. The other advantage with the computer painted image you always have the paints in stock, you don't have to order the required colours or clean up and wash the paint containers before using the next colour. Colour palette You are able to add colours to your colour palette as picture 3 shows. This enables you to take the selected colours from BS5252 making the particular colour scheme easier to produce. You will see from the image in picture 3 (colour palette) the colour scheme example is monochromatic. The mini palette can be moved around the painting screen by clicking and holding down the left mouse key over the title bar of the mini palette and dragging the palette to a different part of the screen. Images The use this programme has as far as the painter & decorator is concerned, is he can go to the customer with his camera take a photograph of the room or ceiling etc, import the image into the programme map or mask the area to be painted (picture 4) if you have a ceiling with a lot of detail you can zoom in and pick out the detail for painting (picture 5). The image can then be printed out and presented to the customer with a before and after colour scheme ( picture 6 ), this would then give the client an idea of what the colour scheme would look like.