The Handwork teacher

I am a mother to two beautiful girls and I teach Handwork and Fine Arts in our local waldorf charter school in Arizona.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Temperament painting

Here is a Temperament painting I did with Faculty

The way this exercise will work, is that you will paint each color as I speak, you can go back at any time and work on one of the other colors but the goal is to fill the 4 corners with each color and in the center they meet to create a human form. So after I speak about one color you will paint a human form, the next color will interact with the first color and paint over the original human form and so on.
Don’t worry about how good the painting is , or how exact your proportions are, just experience the color, the feeling of the water color and try to live into the images that are being formed in your mind.

4 friends agree to meet at noon on top a hill. Yellow, blue, red and green
From the Bottom Left corner
The first to arrive is yellow (our sanguine so sweet) She flutters and leaps with tip toes, she decides that she will look under each blade of grass if she has to, in order to find her friends (she truly does skip, dance and twirl covering the whole hill,) she eagerly runs about to find her friends but after a short while, a grass hopper distracts her mission and she is off leaping about with her new found interest. Yellow moves light on her feet, she is easily impressed and guided. Her friendships are often short and sweet, she is playful and humorous, yet can be arrogant and shallow. Yellow is not as aware of per personal boundaries and can often be seen in other people’s personal space. Yellow will give unlimited attention and love….for a short period of time. Yellow is a day-dreamer and easily moves off-task to the point of not accomplishing anything and can be impulsive and unpredictable. When yellow grows up she wants to be a news reporter or maybe a fashion designer. Something with lots of social interaction and prospects of newness. Her element is Air
In body proportion, yellow is the most balanced. She is often thin boned, almost bird like, wispy hair.
"Sanguines are incapable of lingering over an impression. They cannot fix their attention on a particular image nor sustain their interest in an impression. Instead, they rush from experience to experience, from percept to percept. This is especially noticeable in sanguine children, where it can be a source of concern. The sanguine child's interest is easily kindled, a picture will easily impress, but the impression quickly vanishes." steiner
From the Upper left corner
The next to arrive is Red (our fearless Choleric leader) . He marches onto the hill, heel- toe and walks straight up to yellow. His hand is outstretched to greet and his face is full of Energy, determination and purpose. Red wants to know what is going on and where are their other friends, yellow flutters happily around Red and with excited enthusiasm, yellow tells Red all about her day. Red is quick to bring yellow back on track, where are their other friends? Are they late? Are they Lost? “I will find them” Red announces. Yellow is excited and eager to go on a dramatic adventure.
How exciting “lost friends” Red can take on any task and will try and lead the leader if he can. Red wants what is fare and just. He will not allow friends to be hurt or leave projects unfinished. Red is quick to respond and often can act before thinking. Red does not like it when things don’t go his way and will be very verbal about it. This can end in firery explosions and temper tantrums.
(when red grows up he wants to be the head of the fire department or may a general in the army. Red struggles with his studies but will work as hard as he can to get learn)
Red has a strong build with a thick neck and square jaw line
As Red looks to the east he sees Blue watching them from afar.
Blue (our heartrending Melancholic) realizes that Red and Yellow are looking at her so she comes out from her lookout point on the top right corner and starts to wonder WHY are they looking at her and are they talking about her and oh, what are they saying. Blue walks slowly along the edge of the space, she is not eager to jump into the mix unless personally invited, she doesn’t know if she actually WANTs to be with her friends today.
Red marches right up to blue and shakes hands. Yellow happily flutters around. With so much attention blue is able to come out of her overwhelming feeling of depression and starts to lighten the mood with humor, jokes and sarcasm about herself of course. (when blue grows up she wants to be a Doctor or care taker, she also has dreams of being a standup comedian) Yellow starts to tell Blue that they were worried that blue was lost or hurt. This news makes blue feel worried about what could have happened to Green. Blue by nature is very compassionate and will care for others, especially those less fortunate then themselves. Blue walks with shoulders hunched, she may walk here and there, just to stop, look around and see if anyone is looking at her. She thinks she can read minds or if not minds she must be a face reader for sure! Blue is thin, tall and earth bound. Blue becomes worried about Green and starts to head to the bottom of the hill where sure enough Green is sitting, eating some delicious lunch that he brought in a picnic basket. Blue runs over and hugs green. They sit for some time, blue makes sure that green is well and wants to know what happened and if he needs to talk …..she is there to listen.
Green (our lethargic phlegmatic) follows blue around the hill as they find their other friends. Green feels very comfortable being the follower and not the leader. He likes to listen and happily sits back and watches. Green would have been happy to just stay at the bottom of the hill all day and watched the clouds, listen to the birds and ate sweet treats. Green is generally self-content and kind, with a shy personality that often inhibit enthusiasm in others. He becomes lethargic and resistant to change. Green is consistent, relaxed, rational, and observant, making them good diplomats. Like yellow, green has many friends. Green is reliable and compassionate; (Green thinks about becoming an administrators and diplomats when he grows up but doesn’t want to be a leader in those areas) Green has a good memory especially of the past and will retell stories again and again. Green is careful with his work and will not be rushed. Green will stick with a task for many hours, totally engrossed in his work and not willing to move. He list routine, order and is an honest and faithful friend. Green can have a volcanic eruption like red but only after days or weeks of being bothered with the same issue.
As Green sees Yellow and blue, he smiles and embraces his friends with true joy. Green is often soft to hug with his rounder build and cherry aura. Yellow wants to tickle and play with green, red wants to know what needs to be done to set up for lunch and blue wants to talk about how sad it must have been for green down at the bottom of the hill. Enamels
Together the friends play and enjoy the rest of the day.

1 comment:

Donna said...

Amazing story! I love this.. will give it a try. Blessings...