View transcript
[00:00:35.04]
- Welcome to the Exploratorium
for "Story Time Science".
[00:00:39.09]
Today's episode is on color
[00:00:42.06]
and the book we're gonna be reading
[00:00:44.02]
is "Black is a Rainbow Color".
[00:00:48.00]
It's written by Angela joy
[00:00:50.05]
and it's illustrated by Ekua Holmes.
[00:00:54.01]
(upbeat music)
[00:00:56.09]
So this book starring this
girl is sort of interesting
[00:01:01.08]
in that it's not just about colors
[00:01:04.07]
like the color in paint.
[00:01:06.06]
For her, the color black
is part of her identity.
[00:01:11.06]
It's part of her family,
[00:01:13.02]
it's part of her history,
[00:01:15.00]
it's part of her culture
[00:01:16.06]
and it has a lot of different meanings
[00:01:19.01]
than just like black ink
or black paint on the page.
[00:01:24.02]
Red is a rainbow color.
[00:01:26.09]
Green sits next to blue.
[00:01:29.03]
Yellow, orange, violet, indigo,
[00:01:32.01]
they are rainbow colors too.
[00:01:35.00]
But my color is black
[00:01:40.06]
and there's no black in rainbows.
[00:01:44.05]
Black is a crayon tangled in a box.
[00:01:48.02]
Black is a feather on white winter snow.
[00:01:52.02]
Black is the dirt where sunflowers grow.
[00:01:56.07]
My color is black.
[00:02:00.01]
Black are the braids in
my best friend's hair.
[00:02:05.01]
Black are the bottoms of summertime feet.
[00:02:08.09]
Black are soft circles
that spin down the street.
[00:02:15.05]
My color is black.
[00:02:18.05]
Black is a rhythm.
[00:02:20.05]
Black is the blues.
[00:02:23.05]
Black is sidewalking in spit shine shoes.
[00:02:29.03]
Black is the robe on Thurgood's back.
[00:02:33.08]
Black are the trains on railroad tracks.
[00:02:38.01]
Black are the eyes on salted peas.
[00:02:42.02]
Black are the shadows
of old Magnolia trees.
[00:02:47.07]
Black is molasses from tall sugarcane.
[00:02:51.04]
Black is soft singing
"Hush Now, Don't Explain".
[00:02:57.05]
Black is the skillet for bread to fry.
[00:03:01.09]
Black are dreams and raisins,
[00:03:05.05]
left out in the sun to die.
[00:03:11.01]
Black is the color of ink staining page.
[00:03:15.01]
Black is the mask that shelters his rage.
[00:03:19.06]
Black are the birds in cages that sing.
[00:03:24.06]
Black is a color.
[00:03:26.02]
Black is a culture.
[00:03:29.03]
Black is history.
[00:03:31.08]
Black is family.
[00:03:35.02]
Black is memory.
[00:03:37.07]
Black is community.
[00:03:40.03]
Black is the love that lives inside of me.
[00:03:44.09]
My color is black.
[00:03:48.06]
Black are the stones
bearing witness to prayer.
[00:03:54.01]
Black is the faith in a freedom not seen.
[00:04:00.01]
Here is pictures of four black women
[00:04:04.00]
that did a lot to change
history for the better.
[00:04:09.00]
Black was the man who
gave the world his dream.
[00:04:15.01]
Black is a color.
[00:04:16.07]
Black is a culture.
[00:04:19.09]
Black is the heart of a candle and flame.
[00:04:25.01]
Black is the power of movement in pain.
[00:04:30.05]
Black are the branches that carry my name.
[00:04:34.03]
Weaving, rapping, lifting,
[00:04:38.00]
laughing, hoping, grasping, quiet, strong.
[00:04:45.00]
Our color is black.
[00:04:48.00]
So you see, there is no black in rainbows,
[00:04:53.01]
no black in green or blue,
[00:04:56.02]
but in my box of crayons,
black is a rainbow too.
[00:05:03.09]
(upbeat music)
[00:05:07.01]
We're going to start with primary colors.
[00:05:11.01]
Now what does the word primary mean?
[00:05:13.07]
The word primary means
first or like primary school
[00:05:18.08]
or the word prime, okay?
[00:05:20.09]
So it means the first or the first colors.
[00:05:23.05]
And there are three of them.
[00:05:25.04]
The three primary colors
are in fact yellow.
[00:05:29.04]
Oh, there it is.
[00:05:31.03]
And magenta, there's a
little bit of magenta
[00:05:36.02]
and not blue, but not green either.
[00:05:40.05]
It's a turquoise color, well
we can call it turquoise,
[00:05:43.07]
but the science name is cyan, C, Y, A, N.
[00:05:48.05]
I'm gonna spread these out with a brush
[00:05:57.07]
And here is the nice dark, hot pink
[00:06:00.08]
and I'll wash my brush in some water.
[00:06:04.09]
I don't wanna mix the colors
[00:06:06.06]
until I really wanna mix them
[00:06:08.07]
and I will brush on the yellow.
[00:06:11.01]
And these are the three
primary or first colors.
[00:06:16.04]
And you use these colors to
make all the other colors.
[00:06:21.03]
All right, so there's your yellow,
[00:06:23.04]
there's your dark hot
pink also known as magenta
[00:06:27.02]
and there's your turquoise
also known as cyan.
[00:06:32.01]
Now I'm gonna mix these
colors in some water
[00:06:35.09]
so you can see that I can make red
[00:06:40.03]
and I can make blue.
[00:06:42.02]
So let's start with
that turquoise or cyan.
[00:06:51.00]
A couple more drops, good.
[00:06:54.08]
And some yellow.
[00:07:00.06]
Nice yellow and some of that magenta.
[00:07:06.07]
All right, now I'm gonna hold these up
[00:07:08.08]
so you can really see the colors.
[00:07:12.07]
So there we have some nice cyan
[00:07:19.00]
and some nice yellow
[00:07:27.03]
and some lovely magenta.
[00:07:32.04]
Let me make sure secondary color.
[00:07:34.09]
What would that secondary color be?
[00:07:37.00]
Oh, let's try and make red.
[00:07:38.08]
All right, so we'll
start with some yellow.
[00:07:45.06]
All right now I'm gonna add
it from the dropper bottle.
[00:07:49.03]
I'm gonna add one drop of
the hot pink, the magenta,
[00:07:54.00]
and let's see what happens.
[00:07:58.08]
I'll swirl it around.
[00:08:00.01]
Ooh, I haven't gotten to read yet
[00:08:02.05]
but I did make a nice orange.
[00:08:08.07]
But I wanna make red.
[00:08:10.01]
I already have yellow in here.
[00:08:11.09]
Let's add even more magenta.
[00:08:17.05]
Let's see if I've gotten past dark orange.
[00:08:22.06]
Ooh, that's a nice dark orange.
[00:08:24.05]
I'll show you that color.
[00:08:28.08]
And even a couple more drops of magenta
[00:08:33.00]
so I can make sure I get to a nice red.
[00:08:40.04]
Oh even more, another drop of magenta.
[00:08:44.08]
Two, three, alright.
[00:08:49.05]
Oh yes, that I think is a good red.
[00:08:54.00]
We just red out of magenta and yellow.
[00:09:00.00]
Now let's try and make real blue.
[00:09:03.08]
So are we gonna add yellow?
[00:09:06.04]
No, I'm not going to add yellow.
[00:09:08.00]
I'll wait and do that later.
[00:09:09.05]
I'm going to add some of the magenta.
[00:09:13.03]
So I'm gonna start very, very slowly
[00:09:15.06]
and add just let's try
with a couple of drops,
[00:09:18.07]
oh maybe three drops and
I'll swirl it around.
[00:09:24.04]
Oh, that's a pretty good blue.
[00:09:27.00]
All right, let's see if
we can get a shot of them
[00:09:29.06]
side by side.
[00:09:35.02]
You can see that one
is definitely turquoise
[00:09:37.09]
and the other one is blue.
[00:09:39.05]
But what if I want to make say purple?
[00:09:43.05]
I'm gonna start with that blue
[00:09:45.08]
and I'm gonna add even more magenta
[00:09:49.06]
to the turquoise that I started with
[00:09:53.00]
and we'll see if we can get to purple.
[00:09:58.07]
And kind of all the
different shades in between.
[00:10:02.04]
Oh, I'm gonna add more water
to this so we can really,
[00:10:07.05]
we can really see the colors.
[00:10:09.09]
Ooh, that one is a nice
kind of a violet color.
[00:10:16.00]
If I added even more,
[00:10:18.00]
and why don't I just do it?
[00:10:19.08]
More magenta to it,
[00:10:21.06]
we could make an even more purpley.
[00:10:26.06]
Here, I'll swirl it with my pipette.
[00:10:29.07]
This is something that
you might have at home.
[00:10:33.09]
So now, ooh yes.
[00:10:35.06]
Ooh, that's a nice purpley color.
[00:10:42.07]
What's another color we wanna make?
[00:10:44.04]
Oh, let's make green.
[00:10:46.09]
What two colors do you think
we'll use to make green?
[00:10:49.09]
We're gonna start with yellow.
[00:10:53.04]
Start with that primary
[00:10:55.04]
and what other primary
are we gonna add to it?
[00:10:58.08]
Oh, let's add just a
little bit of the cyan,
[00:11:04.03]
yellow and cyan or turquoise.
[00:11:10.03]
I'm gonna add it from.
[00:11:13.05]
Ooh, now it's sort of a lemon lime color.
[00:11:17.04]
Gonna add another, oh yes.
[00:11:20.05]
Trying to get to what I like
to call Jolly Rancher green.
[00:11:25.02]
Ooh, that one is a little
bit darker than Jolly Rancher
[00:11:29.00]
but you can see it is
most definitely green.
[00:11:33.08]
You can also mix these colors
[00:11:35.07]
and you can get too dark brown or black.
[00:11:39.03]
In fact, like the little girl
[00:11:42.01]
in the story that we just read,
[00:11:45.03]
she wondered if black was a rainbow color.
[00:11:48.04]
She said, yes, black was a rainbow color
[00:11:51.04]
because it made her feel the
rainbow inside of herself.
[00:11:54.09]
But in reality, black is
really all of the colors
[00:11:59.02]
of the rainbow mixed together.
[00:12:01.05]
I am going to try and mix up
[00:12:04.00]
a bunch of different colors
[00:12:05.05]
to try and get as close to
black or dark brown as I can.
[00:12:10.06]
All right, so I have my list here.
[00:12:12.03]
I'm not gonna go through them all.
[00:12:14.00]
I'm gonna try for a dark gray or a black
[00:12:17.04]
and a dark Brown
[00:12:19.00]
and let's see how I can do that.
[00:12:20.08]
And by doing that, I'm gonna try
[00:12:24.01]
and get to a color that you don't think of
[00:12:27.00]
as something in the rainbow,
[00:12:30.00]
but it's still a color in nature.
[00:12:33.06]
So all right, I'm going to try
[00:12:37.01]
mixing all three colors.
[00:12:39.03]
And again, I'm going to
start with some yellow.
[00:12:44.00]
So let's do one, two, three, four,
[00:12:47.09]
five, six, seven drops of yellow
[00:12:50.09]
and I'm gonna mark it,
okay for dark brown.
[00:12:54.06]
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven yellow
[00:12:59.03]
and let me get another pipette.
[00:13:02.01]
Oh, I'll use this one here
[00:13:04.02]
'cause this one's pretty much cleaned out
[00:13:06.00]
and I'm gonna do some magenta.
[00:13:08.09]
Now this is gonna go to red at first,
[00:13:13.04]
one, two, three, four,
[00:13:17.06]
five drops of magenta,
[00:13:20.03]
gonna mark that down.
[00:13:23.00]
One, two, three, four, five,
[00:13:25.00]
and now let's go to
[00:13:29.02]
my cyan or my turquoise.
[00:13:35.03]
You wanna do this in the
kitchen like by the sink
[00:13:38.04]
so you don't make as
much of a mess as I am.
[00:13:40.09]
All right, so now let's go for one,
[00:13:46.01]
two drops of the cyan
[00:13:47.09]
and let's see where that's
gotten us, all right?
[00:13:52.05]
So that was one, two drops of the cyan
[00:13:56.04]
and let me use my brush again.
[00:13:58.03]
I'm gonna clean the brush
[00:14:03.03]
and let's mix this up and ooh,
[00:14:06.08]
ooh, I'm already kind of getting
[00:14:09.00]
to like a grayish green on this one.
[00:14:15.00]
That is, that's a very, very
dark green, greenish gray.
[00:14:20.05]
It's gonna be kind of drippy there.
[00:14:23.01]
Think I wanna add maybe
another drop of magenta.
[00:14:29.04]
Let's try two drops a magenta, one, two.
[00:14:33.00]
And I'm gonna mark it
[00:14:34.08]
on my little data collection sheet here.
[00:14:38.04]
One, two more drops of magenta.
[00:14:41.04]
Let's stir it around.
[00:14:46.04]
Ooh, ooh, it's already starting
to look even more gray.
[00:14:59.02]
Yes indeed, we're moving more toward
[00:15:02.04]
the dark gray and the black.
[00:15:07.00]
But I want it to get to Brown.
[00:15:08.08]
So I'm gonna add even more magenta.
[00:15:12.07]
I'm just guessing at this
point, just trying it out.
[00:15:15.07]
One, two more drops of magenta.
[00:15:21.09]
I'll mark it on my sheet, one, two.
[00:15:27.03]
Now let's see if we're getting.
[00:15:30.00]
Wow, I'm not getting the brown,
[00:15:31.08]
but I am getting really close to black.
[00:15:35.00]
You know, I'm gonna add
one more drop of magenta,
[00:15:42.03]
mark it on my sheet.
[00:15:49.01]
Wow, well, I think I'm
gonna stop with this
[00:15:51.07]
because we got something
pretty close to a dark gray
[00:15:56.03]
or a black.
[00:16:01.09]
Oh yeah.
[00:16:05.02]
Wow.
[00:16:07.00]
So black is a rainbow color.
[00:16:10.05]
Black has all the colors of
the rainbow mixed together.
[00:16:14.04]
It's pretty good and if
I wanna make black again,
[00:16:18.03]
I have the recipe here.
[00:16:20.03]
Two drops of cyan, 10 drops of magenta
[00:16:24.05]
and seven drops of yellow
[00:16:26.08]
gets me to a really
nice dark gray or black.
[00:16:30.07]
(upbeat music)
[00:16:35.00]
Time for Poetry Corner.
[00:16:37.01]
This poem is called
"Colors" by Shel Silverstein
[00:16:42.02]
and Shel Silverstein is a
pretty famous illustrator
[00:16:47.05]
and writer and poet.
[00:16:49.06]
He's got some really
great books out there.
[00:16:52.03]
I can remember "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
[00:16:55.07]
and also "A Light in the
Attic", but there's lots more.
[00:16:59.09]
Should check out some
more Shel Silverstein.
[00:17:02.04]
So "Colors".
[00:17:05.06]
My skin is kind of, sort of brownish,
[00:17:11.02]
pinkish, yellowish, white.
[00:17:14.06]
My eyes are grayish, bluish, green,
[00:17:19.06]
but I'm told they look
orange in the night.
[00:17:23.02]
My hair is reddish, blondish brown,
[00:17:28.08]
but it's silvery when wet.
[00:17:32.00]
And all the colors I am inside
have not been invented yet.
[00:17:38.01]
(upbeat music)
