Pick Up the Pen and Add Color

You can draw any shape now — but everywhere the turtle goes, it leaves a line, and it’s all one boring color. Today you fix both: lift the pen to make separate shapes, and add color to bring drawings to life.

Adding color and thickness

Two instructions make a big difference right away:

  • t.color("red") — draw in red. Try "blue", "green", "purple", "orange", "hotpink", "teal"…
  • t.pensize(8) — set the line thickness. Bigger number, thicker line.
 
 
  

Try it 🎯


    

  1. Change the color to your favorite.
    2. 

  2. Change pensize(8) to pensize(20). Whoa, chunky!
    3. 

  3. Add t.right(90) and another t.forward(150) to make a thick, colorful corner.
    4. 



Lifting the pen


The turtle holds a pen, and you can lift it up to move without drawing, then put it back down:


    

  • t.penup() — lift the pen (moving leaves no line).
    • 

  • t.pendown() — put it back (drawing again).
    • 



Watch the turtle draw, hop across a gap, and draw again:


   
   
 
 
 
 
 
  

Two separate lines with a gap, because the pen was up in the middle. This is how you make shapes that aren’t connected.


Predict it 🔮


The code below lifts the pen, moves, forgets to put it back down, then tries to draw. Guess what shows up before you Run:


   
   
 
 
 
 
 
  

(Almost nothing past the first line! The pen never came back down, so the last moves draw nothing. Add t.pendown() before the last line to fix it.)


Filling a shape with color


To color the inside of a shape, wrap the drawing between t.begin_fill() and t.end_fill(), and pick a fillcolor:


   
   
 
 
 
 
 
  

A solid gold triangle! Everything drawn between begin_fill and end_fill gets filled in.


Try it 🎯


    

  1. Change "gold" to another color.
    2. 

  2. Change the three forward(100) to forward(160) for a bigger triangle.
    3. 

  3. Add t.color("black") and t.pensize(4) at the top for a bold outline around the fill.
    4. 



Your mission 🚀


Draw two separate filled shapes in different colors — for example a red square on the left and a blue triangle on the right. Use penup/pendown to hop between them. Here’s a start with the first shape:


   
   
 
 
 
 
 
  

What you learned today


    

  • t.color("name") sets the color; t.pensize(n) sets the thickness.
    • 

  • t.penup() and t.pendown() let you move without drawing — for separate shapes.
    • 

  • t.begin_fill() … t.end_fill() fills a shape, using t.fillcolor("name").
    • 



Next time we put this whole week together into a real picture: a house with colored walls and a roof. 🏠🐢
   
 
 
 
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