Lesson 1: Tangled Ball of Emotions
Duration of Days: 2
Lesson Objective
Students will map internal emotions to specific colors and use repetitive physical motion (scrubbing) to visualize the complexity of their current emotional state.
How do we distinguish one feeling from another when they all hit at once? Can a color "feel" like an emotion?
Color Symbolism: The use of color as a symbol in various cultures. Gestural Drawing: A laying in of the action, form, and POS of a model or figure.
VA:Cr1.1.HSII: Individually or collaboratively formulate new creative problems based on student's existing artwork.
Identifying Central Ideas: Just as a reader identifies themes in a complex text, an artist identifies specific emotions within a "tangled" visual field.
Description: Color-coding emotions and "scrubbing" them into a ball. Purpose: Emotional awareness and tactile release. DOK Level 2: Skill/Concept Application.
Art Therapy: How clinical professionals use "The Scribble Technique" to help patients bypass verbal blocks and express subconscious stress.construction
"It just looks like a mess." Correction: The "mess" is an honest data map of a complex human experience; the value is in the legend you create to explain it.
For students with sensory sensitivities: Offer soft pastels or markers instead of "scrubbing" with heavy pressure crayons.
Formative: Check that the color key (legend) matches the frequency of colors used in the "tangled ball."
Heavy drawing paper, crayons/oil pastels, "The Emotion Wheel" (Visual Resource).