Mood Colors
This project was inspired by Vassily Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles. The color combinations present different moods and feelings. This lesson helps to develop fantasy and imagination and might be used as therapy as well. Kids combine various colors to visualize their emotions. Students were offered to paint their happy mood, sad mood, calm mood, birthday party excitement, fear, eating a cake, boredom etc. Kids pick the feelings they want. It is a good idea to write on the back of the paper the order of moods they have visualized (for parents and other viewers).
This is a project for 5-8 years old.
Materials: paper lined with 2 rows and 3 columns, pencils, acrylic paints, brushes.
Project takes about 45 minutes
- line the paper to 2 equal rows and then add 3 columns (as wide as the row’s height) to make 6 squares . I advice to prepare the squares before the lesson. Kids 7& up can do it by themselves.
- show kids abstract paintings and explain that sometimes the picture doesn’t have to be realistic to present artist’s mood or emotions.
- demonstrate Vassily Kandinsky’s work “Squares with Concentric Circles”. Ask kids what they think about those circles. Let them guess what it could mean. Talk about expressing mood with colors. What are scary colors? What are happy colors? What about color combinations?
- now it’s time to begin the artwork: draw simple shapes like a circle, triangle, star, heart, rectangle etc. one in each square. Keep the shape very simple without small details or complicated edges.
- add a bigger outline to each shape. Repeat outlining 2-3 times.
- start coloring each square with chosen mood/feeling. Kids might keep white paper instead of white paint where needed. Tell kids that they might use repetitive colors. Also they can mix they own colors on a palette. Ask them to think first and use their imagination to visualize the feelings they have chosen.
- At this work my 5 year old student painted following moods: happy, jumping on a trampoline, mom’s hug, scared, excited, flying to outer space.
- this artwork by 8 year old girl represents happiness, anger, eating a cake, waking up, being sleepy and bad mood.
