Beyond Primary Colors: Teaching My Baby the Real Shades of Color

When my baby turned six months old, I began introducing Montessori-inspired color categorization activities. I quickly realized that while my child could identify “red,” subtle variations within that color were incredibly difficult to grasp.

At the time, I searched everywhere for better color tools, but all I found were books filled with cartoonish cars, dinosaurs, and blobs of primary colors. They were flat and loud, not the visual experience I wanted for my child.

Then one day, something unexpected happened. I had returned a postcard from Art Basel Miami, just a simple promotional print from a contemporary gallery. When I laid it near my child, they stared intently at it. It wasn’t for long, maybe just a few seconds, but it was a focused attention I hadn’t seen before. Something in that artwork had sparked their curiosity.

That tiny moment changed everything. I realized that even babies can appreciate visual complexity, not in the same way adults do, but in their instinctive way. I didn’t want to wait until my child was “old enough” to experience real art; I wanted to introduce art to them in a way that nurtures their visual senses from the start.

This inspired the creation of Baby’s Art Journey, a museum-based art education kit for babies and toddlers. Using high-quality color cards and images from real museum collections, I developed a tool to introduce children to the richness of color, form, and beauty, long before they learn to draw.