High School

Eunice M.

The Essential Questions
How can we visually represent how breathing lets us release our emotions?

Objective
Students will participate in a breathing exercise and create an artwork that shows the emotions they breathe in and release, as if through a vacuum hose, and use this metaphor as part of their design.

Materials
watercolor paper, watercolors, paintbrushes, water cups, painterʼs tape, fine-tipped markers in various colors

Procedures
1. Lead the class in a breathing exercise in which students focus on emotions in their bodies, breathe them in, and release them with their breath. Guide them to breathe in deeply and exhale slowly.
2. Ask students to take their watercolor paper and add a large rectangle of tape that spans across it, then continue to apply additional pieces of tape, overlapping and intersecting them to represent the emotions let out through their vacuum breathing. They can apply additional tape if they wish to create a border.
3. Ask students to paint over their tape with at least two colors, covering the entire paper.
4. After the paint has dried, students can remove the overlapping tape one piece at a time.
5. Instruct students to outline the tape marks with markers and create a vacuum hose design, one tape strip at a time.

Assessment
Guide students in a small group discussion about how their design reflects the path of their emotions.

Rachel Barger is an art student teacher at Northwest Cabarrus High School in Concord, North Carolina.