Learning Goals
- To experience colors in their archetypal qualities free from the constrictions of outer form: the laws and the language of colors and their effects on the human soul as researched by Goethe, Steiner, Kandinsky, and Collot d’Herbois
- To experience the activity of painting and its relevance to education
- To develop an integrated experience of color that can serve the Waldorf curriculum throughout the high school grades
Content
- Discover color as creative being through observation and experience
- Experience active and passive colors as they relate to soul gestures. Study primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, warm and cool range of colors
- Deepen pedagogical understanding of nerve-sense, rhythmical, and metabolic aspects of the human being and the way they are expressed in color
Method
- Introductions and demonstrations: Students work on common themes but are encouraged to individualize them through the creativity of their own paintings.
- Students need to obtain their own portfolio case (at least 18″ x24″) and color journal (a blank white-paper notebook of at least 8.5″ x 11″). In addition students should bring their own colored pencils and/or crayons, plus chalk pastels.
Topics Covered
- Primary colors, complementary colors, and secondary colors; Goethe’s color wheel; The whole color spectrum; Painting out of the color wheel; Goethe’s and Steiner’s color wheels
- Color spectrum research through prism lab; Observing day and night spectra; Newton, Goethe, and Kandinsky; “The deeds and sufferings of Light” [Goethe]; Experiencing the archetypes of Light and Darkness as they create color; Charcoal exercises; Collot d’Herbois
- Color as soul expression; Chalk pastel exercises; Exploring soul gestures as colors that move between light of thinking and dark of willing; Soul gesture painting; Free color mood painting
- Temperament painting; Goethe’s color-temperament wheel; Arriving at form out of color; Applying the laws of light, dark and color through an artistic expression either in chalk or watercolor
