In a little house at the edge of a forest lived a little white kid named Snowy. Every morning, his mommy would send him to the meadow to graze on the fresh, green grass. But Snowy didn't want to just eat grass. What he loved most was discovering the world around him.
One sunny morning, as Snowy was hopping about the meadow and chasing butterflies, he found something peculiar under a large oak tree. There lay a small, colorful bag. Snowy cautiously approached and peeked inside curiously.
"Oh, what's this?" he exclaimed in surprise, seeing the brightly colored little bottles of liquid. Red, blue, yellow, green... all the colors of the rainbow!
"Those are watercolors," a voice called from above him. A wise owl named Sonia was sitting on a branch of the oak tree. "They belong to a little girl named Lucy. She was painting here yesterday and forgot them."
"And what are they for?" asked Snowy.
Sonia the owl adjusted the glasses on her beak. "For painting, of course! But you have to mix them with water."
Snowy pondered. "Mix them with water? And what happens if I mix them with each other?"
"That's a good question," the owl nodded. "Why don't you try? Discovering things is fun!"
Snowy jumped with excitement. This was going to be an adventure! He took the bag of paints and carefully carried it to a small stream that flowed nearby.
By the stream, he found a few large leaves. "These will be perfect for bowls!" he thought. He plucked them and placed them on a flat rock by the water. Into each leaf, he scooped a little water from the stream.
"Now I can begin my great color experiment," he said aloud, and Sonia the owl, who was watching him, nodded in agreement.
First, Snowy took the little blue bottle. He opened it carefully and let a single drop fall into the first leaf of water. The water turned a beautiful blue, as if a piece of the sky was floating in it.
"Oh, that's beautiful!" he exclaimed with delight. "Like the summer sky!"
Into the second leaf, he dripped the red paint. The water immediately turned a deep red, like ripe strawberries.
"And what will happen if I mix them?" Snowy wondered aloud.
"Try it and see," the owl encouraged him.
Snowy carefully took a little of the blue water and poured it into the leaf with the red. He watched closely to see what would happen. The colors began to mix, and right before his eyes, a brand-new color appeared!
"Purple!" he cried enthusiastically. "Blue and red together made purple! This is amazing!"
The owl smiled. "Yes, Snowy. When you mix two colors, you create a new one."
Snowy was so excited that he decided to try other combinations. Into a new leaf, he poured the yellow paint, which looked like liquid sunshine.
"And now... what if I mix yellow with blue?" he wondered aloud.
"What do you think will happen?" the owl asked.
"Maybe... blue-yellow?" Snowy guessed.
He carefully mixed the yellow and blue water. The colors swirled and created a beautiful green.
"Green!" he cried out in surprise. "Like the grass and the leaves on the trees! So blue and yellow together make green!"
Snowy was fascinated. It had never occurred to him that new colors could be created by mixing them. He decided to try even more combinations.
He added red to a new leaf of water and then carefully poured in the yellow.
"And red and yellow will make..." he whispered intently.
The colors blended to create a vibrant orange.
"Orange!" Snowy cheered. "Like the sunset!"
Snowy liked this so much that he decided to try mixing all three primary colors at once: red, blue, and yellow. The result was a dark color.
"It looks like brown earth," he remarked.
"That too is an important discovery," said Sonia the owl. "Not all combinations will create bright and vivid colors."
Snowy nodded and continued with his experiments. He discovered that when he added more water to the colors, they became lighter, and when he added more paint, they grew darker and richer.
"This is wonderful!" he exclaimed. "I can create so many different colors!"
Just as he was about to try another combination, he heard a call.
"Snowy! Snowy, where are you?"
It was his mommy, looking for him.
"I'm here, Mommy!" Snowy called back. "I'm experimenting with how colors mix!"
Mommy came to the stream and looked in surprise at all the colorful leaves.
"Snowy, what are you doing here?" she asked.
"I'm discovering how colors mix, Mommy," he explained excitedly. "I found out that blue and red together make purple, yellow and blue make green, and red and yellow make orange!"
Mommy smiled. "That's very interesting, Snowy. But those paints belong to someone."
"Yes, to little Lucy," Snowy nodded. "Sonia the owl told me. I don't want to keep them, I just wanted to find out how they work."
"That's all right," said Mommy. "But we should put them back where you found them. Lucy will surely come back for them."
Snowy agreed. He carefully cleaned the little bottles in the clear stream, closed them, and put them back in the bag.
"Can I come back tomorrow and see if Lucy has picked them up?" he asked.
"Of course," Mommy nodded. "And maybe you could show her what you learned today about mixing colors."
Snowy jumped with excitement. "That's a great idea! Maybe we could paint together!"
Sonia the owl, who had been listening to their conversation, nodded in agreement. "We learn best when we share our knowledge with others," she said wisely.
Snowy carried the bag of paints back under the oak tree and placed it exactly where he had found it. Then he returned home with his mommy, full of new knowledge about the colorful world.
All the way home, he told his mommy about his discoveries. "And did you know, Mommy, that if you add more water to a color, it gets lighter? And if you add less water, it's darker!"
"That's very interesting, Snowy," Mommy smiled. "You're like a little explorer."
The next day, Snowy woke up early. He couldn't wait to go back to the oak tree and see if Lucy had picked up her paints. Right after breakfast, he said goodbye to his mommy and ran to the oak tree.
When he arrived at the spot, he stopped in surprise. A little girl with long pigtails was sitting under the oak tree. She was holding the bag of paints and had a piece of paper on her lap.
"Hello," Snowy greeted her. "Are you Lucy?"
The little girl looked at the little white kid in surprise. "Yes, I am. And you can talk?"
"All the animals in our forest can talk," Snowy explained.
"That's amazing!" exclaimed Lucy. "What's your name?"
"Snowy," he introduced himself. "I found your paints yesterday and experimented with them a little. I was testing what happens when I mix them in water."
"Really?" Lucy was delighted. "And what did you find out?"
Snowy began to explain enthusiastically: "I found out that blue and red together make purple. Yellow and blue make green. And red and yellow make orange!"
Lucy nodded. "That's right! Those are the basic rules of mixing colors. At school, they taught us that there are three primary colors—red, blue, and yellow. From them, we can mix all the other colors."
"All of them?" Snowy asked in surprise.
"Almost all of them," Lucy smiled. "There's also black and white, which are special. When you add white to another color, it becomes lighter. And when you add black, it becomes darker."
Snowy was thrilled with this information. "That's wonderful!"
"Would you like to paint with me?" Lucy asked. "I have enough paper and paints here for both of us."
"Yes, I'd love to!" Snowy hopped with excitement.
Lucy laid out a second piece of paper, gave Snowy a paintbrush, and they began to paint together. Snowy tried to paint a meadow with flowers, but he found that holding a paintbrush in his hoof wasn't easy.
"It doesn't matter if it's not perfect," Lucy encouraged him. "The important thing is that you're trying and having fun."
Benny smiled and continued painting. Lucy showed him how he could mix colors directly on the paper, not just in the water. When he painted a yellow circle with red stripes across it, the parts where they overlapped turned orange.
"That's amazing!" Benny exclaimed. "The colors mix on the paper too!"
Lucy nodded. "Yes, and there are many ways you can mix colors."
Benny and Lucy spent the whole morning painting and experimenting with colors. Benny learned that there are warm colors like red, orange, and yellow, which remind you of fire and the sun. And there are cool colors like blue and green, which remind you of water and the forest.
"And purple?" Benny asked.
"Purple is an interesting one," Lucy explained. "It's a mix of a warm red and a cool blue."
When the sun climbed high into the sky, Lucy looked at her watch. "I have to go home for lunch," she said. "But I can come back tomorrow, and we can continue painting."
"That would be great!" Benny cheered. "And maybe I could bring my friends so they can learn about colors too."
"Excellent," Lucy agreed. "We'll have a forest art club!"
Benny helped Lucy pack up the paints and papers. As they were saying goodbye, Lucy gave Benny his painting.
"You painted this," she said. "It's your first painting."
Benny looked happily at his painting. It wasn't perfect, but it was full of color and joy. "Thank you, Lucy," he said. "I'll take it home and show Mommy."
When Benny returned home, his mother was surprised to see his painting.
"Benny, this is wonderful!" she exclaimed. "So many beautiful colors!"
"Yes, Mommy," he nodded proudly. "And did you know that all these colors came from just three primary ones? Red, blue, and yellow!"
His mother smiled. "That really is fascinating. I'm proud of you for being so curious and for loving to learn new things."
Benny enthusiastically told her about everything he had learned from Lucy that day—about warm and cool colors, about mixing them on paper and in water, and about the forest art club they were going to have tomorrow.
That evening, as Benny lay in bed, he thought about all the colors he had seen and created that day.
"The world is full of colors," he thought. "And I've figured out how they work."
With that happy thought, Benny closed his eyes and fell asleep. He dreamed of colorful rainbows, meadows of flowers, and all the things he would create with his new friends the next day.