Palette and Mark Making

Overview

This is lesson 1 of 3 in Exploring Visual Narratives. Students investigate how colour relationships and mark-making choices can communicate mood, atmosphere and narrative intention. Their experiments will become visual evidence for developing a personal art-making proposition in the following lessons.

Learning intentions

• WALT experiment with colour palettes that communicate a chosen mood or idea.
• WALT test mark-making techniques using a range of media.
• WALT observe and describe how colour and marks interact.
• WALT record useful discoveries to inform future art making.

Success criteria

• I can create at least three different colour palettes and explain the mood or idea each could suggest.
• I can test a range of marks using different tools and media.
• I can make deliberate choices about colour, line, texture and gesture.
• I can annotate my experiments so they can inform a future artwork.

Curriculum links

• Explore Visual Arts processes and conventions to inform own art making by experimenting with media, techniques and visual conventions in response to an intention.
• Produce a significant resolved artwork appropriate to established art-making conventions by identifying how material choices and techniques can communicate an idea.
• Create a sustained body of related artworks in response to an art-making proposition by beginning a consistent visual language across related experiments.
• New Zealand Curriculum: Level 6 Arts achievement objectives, with links to thinking, managing self, and participating and contributing.

Lesson structure (60 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Visual hook. Teacher displays two contrasting abstract artworks or cropped visual details in the opening visual comparison and asks, “How could colour and marks change the story of the same image?” Students silently record two mood words, then share one observation with a partner.

2. 5–13 min · Direct teaching. Teacher uses the colour and mark-making teaching slides to model warm, cool, complementary, analogous, monochromatic and limited palettes, briefly explaining colour interaction and contrast. Teacher demonstrates dry and wet media marks, including hatching, scumbling, stippling, blending, scraping, dragging, splattering and gestural lines. Students identify which colour or mark choices appear calm, tense, energetic or mysterious, and add key terms to the palette and mark-making investigation sheet.

3. 13–18 min · Set up the investigation. Teacher explains that the purpose is experimentation rather than producing a polished artwork, and models how to label a swatch with the medium, colour combination and possible emotional effect. Students choose a simple narrative prompt from the board, such as “a secret is revealed”, “belonging”, “an approaching storm” or “a moment of change”, then prepare three labelled investigation areas on their worksheet.

4. 18–38 min · Palette experiments. Teacher circulates, prompting students to vary one factor at a time and referring back to the investigation instructions and palette examples. Students create at least three palettes: one using related colours, one using strong contrast, and one limited or monochromatic palette. They mix or layer colours where appropriate, record the media used, and annotate the mood, atmosphere or narrative possibility suggested by each palette.

5. 38–53 min · Mark-making experiments. Teacher demonstrates safe, controlled use of tools and invites students to test marks with at least three media, such as graphite, coloured pencil, ink, charcoal, pastel, paint or collage materials. Students make a varied mark bank, changing pressure, speed, direction, scale and density. They combine selected marks with two palettes and annotate which marks best communicate their chosen narrative prompt. Students photograph or carefully store their investigations for lesson 2.

6. 53–60 min · Share and exit reflection. Teacher displays the reflection and sharing prompts and leads a quick pair-share. Students complete the final section of the reflection and next-step prompts, identifying their strongest palette, most expressive mark and one technique they want to develop in the next lesson. Invite two or three students to explain a deliberate choice and how it could inform a visual narrative.

Resources

• the Palette Exploration and Mark Making slide deck
• the palette and mark-making investigation sheet
• A3 or A4 mixed-media paper and drawing paper
• Watercolour, acrylic or poster paint with palettes and water containers
• Graphite, coloured pencils, charcoal, oil or soft pastels, and ink
• Brushes, sponges, palette knives, sticks, cotton buds and textured materials
• Aprons or protective coverings and drying space
• Digital camera or class learning platform for recording experiments
• Board or projector for displaying narrative prompts

Assessment

• During modelling, check that students can distinguish a palette from an individual colour and can describe a mark using precise visual language.
• Circulate during experimentation and question choices: “What changed when you increased contrast?” “How does the speed or pressure of this mark affect the mood?”
• Collect or photograph investigation sheets as formative evidence. The exit reflection should identify one informed choice and one next step, rather than simply stating which experiment the student likes.

Differentiation

• Provide a small set of prepared colour groups on the board, sentence starters such as “This palette suggests…” and “This mark communicates…”, and a visual list of mark-making verbs for students who need support.
• Allow students to work with fewer media but require more purposeful variation in pressure, scale, direction or layering. Provide larger tools or adapted grips where fine-motor control is a barrier.
• Support EAL learners with mood images, paired discussion before writing, and permission to use labelled diagrams, bilingual notes or translated key terms.
• Extend confident students by asking them to develop a palette that shifts gradually from one mood to another, or to combine two contrasting mark systems to suggest a change in narrative or viewpoint.
• Reinforce cultural safety by inviting students to draw on personal experiences without requiring disclosure, and by reminding the class not to copy culturally specific symbols or patterns without appropriate knowledge and respect.