Summer project: How to make a cyanometer
04/08/22To celebrate the paperback release of A Sensory Education, we are sharing here a project that could also make a wonderful summer craft activity with kids. Enjoy!

How to make a Cyanometer
Equipment
- Paint cards from a hardware store
- Pens
- Scissors
- A compass
- A sturdy piece of cardboard
- Glue
- White stickers
- Blue-tack (or white-tack)
- A music player to play Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
Instructions
- Put music on, suggested listening being Kind of Blue. In 1959, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis assembled his ideal sextet. Using simple musical scales, instead of the complex harmonic progressions of their contemporaries, they attempted, in five mesmeric tracks, to redefine an art form and capture the essence of all that was blue.
- Take a compass and draw two circles on the sturdy card, one of approximately 30cm diameter and the other of approximately 20cm diameter. If you don’t have a compass you can use dinner plates and saucers.
- Fold the 40 colour sample cards in half and glue halves together, then cut in half again.
- Put white stickers at the bottom of each colour card.
- Arrange the sample cards in a circle, using blue-tack to hold into place so that the correct spacing can be achieved (10 cards should fit in one quarter).
- Glue the cards in place.
- Number the white stickers from 1-40 with a marker.
- Take outside and measure the blueness of the sky.
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