Children - Lesson 2: On the hunt for expression

Child

Hi. There are lots of ideas and emotions in art. Can you look at art works and pretend you are in them? Looking at art and describing the emotions you see helps to interpret it.

Adult/Teacher

Hello. In this lesson, help the child interpret art works by focusing on emotions in them.

Expression

Young children often struggle to capture two important concepts in their drawings: emotion and ideas. In this lesson, we focus on identifying emotional expressions in art.

Childhood is full of extreme emotions—squeals of delight, shrieks of terror, convulsions of sorrow, a glow of joy—any combination of which can appear and disappear in a matter of seconds, so it is almost surprising that young people find it difficult to show their range of emotions when they are drawing.

In part, it is a deficit of observational skill. With the goal of expanding a child’s ability to recognize expression in art, let’s look at interpretive art skills and see if they can help a child in their own drawing and in their ability to recognize emotions in art.

First, imagine a young child making a drawing. She wants to show a happy day, and in the picture, she is dancing among the flowers. The sun is smiling, she is smiling, even the flowers are smiling. But what are the actual marks that indicate those smiles? She has created smiley faces for the sun, flowers, and herself. A smiley face is a circle with an upturned arc for a smiling mouth. That’s a start, but as a child’s drawing gathers more and more sophisticated information, the smiley face will be inadequate.

Observational exercises

Talking about emotions. Gather some images from your home that show a range of emotions. These might be from books, magazines, and art works on display. Share one at a time with the child and ask, “What is this person feeling?” That should lead to a discussion. A good beginning. But go deeper by asking a follow-up question, “How do you know the person in the image is feeling that way?” Guide the child’s responses to be as specific as possible. You can go ever further. If the child, seeing a happy person in the image says, “Because he is smiling,” ask, “Is it only the mouth that makes a smile? What happens to your eyes when you smile? The lines on your face? The posture of your body?

Similar discussions can reveal emotional subtleties for a full range of emotions. How do you know a person in an image is angry, sad, disappointed, silly, curious, or suspicious? And then, how can an artist depict these expressions by making drawn marks on a page?

Don’t be surprised if the child tries to put some of these ideas into his next drawing.

Mirroring. Some art teachers bring small mirrors to class to help children look closely at their own features and then transfer them to a drawing. A different kind of mirroring takes place when you look at an art work and ask a child to physically mirror whatever a character in the art is doing and to replicate their expressions. Many children are excellent at this kind of game. It frees them from having to articulate what they sense innately. It’s play.

Ask the child to look at the image, physically mirror it, and then freeze. Take a photo of the child, and then show the child the photo and the art work, side by side. Did the child capture the emotion accurately? Have a chat about it and repeat the exercise to mark progress recognizing emotion in art.

Expressions of the body. We tend to think of the face as the center of expression, but of course, that’s just one part of it. Think of the posture of someone standing graveside at a funeral, or of someone who has just won a championship game. Their bodies form very different shapes. Visualize how different emotions are suggested by bodies that are rigid, contorted, open, exuberant, jumping, etc.

A stick figure is the opposite of expression. It is a blank. Inexperienced artists struggle to express how to alter that generic quality in their visual communication. They often draw figures as if they were a snowman: upright body, arms sticking out, a few clues to clothing, and “two eyes made out of coal.” Being unable to more fully express themselves, children can become frustrated with drawing. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Find an art work—a photograph, drawing, painting, or object, for example—that shows a person in motion. Cover the face of the person with your hand or a piece of paper and ask, “What clues does this body give you about the emotion of the person you’re seeing?” Was the child correct?