The color decomposition of your markers

The color decomposition to understand primary and secondary colors.

The primary colors are cyan, yellow, and magenta. Three shades from which all the others are derived. One way of discovering the color of the markers is to play with water, a coffee filter, and to use the principle of capillarity.

You will need:
  • Felt-tip pens of various colors
  • Coffee filters
  • Clean glass jars
  • Some water

From 6 years

Difficulty : easy

Let's experiment

The color decomposition

Gather all the requested materials

draw a lign of color on coffee filter

Choose different colors. Ideally, colors that are not blue, red and yellow.

draw a lign of color on coffee filter
dive the coffee filter in a bit of water

With a felt-tip pen, draw a line at 0.6 in from the edge.

In a glass jar, add water to a height of 0.2 in.

observe the color decomposition

Insert the coffee filter so that the bottom of the filter is in water.

the color decomposition

Now watch what’s going on. The color rises in the filter washed away by the water.

Over time, other colors appear. The different colors that make up that of the felt develop on the filter.

the color decomposition

Understand the experiment

Why does the color migrate into the coffee filter?

The ink in the felt-tip pen climbs into the coffee filter due to the capillary effect. As soon as the water meets the felt-tip ink, it takes the ink with it. The capillary effect is a force that opposes gravity thanks to the presence of a very narrow tube. This allows the colors to break down.

Did you know?

Primary and secondary colors ?

These are colors that cannot be obtained with mixtures. There are three primary colors: yellow, magenta, and cyan. With these, we create secondary colors. For example, mixing blue and yellow gives green.

Challenge

Test the color decomposition of black, brown, gray shades, and observe!

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