Paint with the End in Mind

Sometimes its hard for students to picture what an art project will look like in the end. Mrs. Vanderwerf's students are busy making paintings based on emotions. These paintings plus a cover design will eventually be made into a hand made-book that the students will bind themselves.

We began the project by looking at color field paintings by Mark Rothko which are very large paintings of subtle color washes. From afar they look like paintings of just one or two colors. They are meant to be looked at long enough so you can feel the colors wash over you, eventually getting an overwhelming sensation of a mood change just by starring at the colors.

My students are choosing colors for each emotion painting based on how a color makes them feel. They use their color choices to paint a small painting of emotions such as: happy, sad, mad, frustrated, proud, nervous, embarrassed, scared, loved and lonely. When all ten paintings are complete we will begin to put our feelings books together.

The boys in Mrs. Vanderwerf's class are so busy painting and experimenting with painting techniques, that they don't even think about what we're going to do with the pages in the end. I have to keep reminding them that we have to paint with the end in mind so we will have all our pages ready when we begin to bind our hand-made books.