Expressing the emotions of preschool children through artistic expression

Emocije su ono što nas čini jednistvenima. Emocije koje doživljavamo su vrlo šarolike i složene i ponekad ih je teško izraziti verbalnim načinom. Također potrebno je mnogo truda kako bismo prepoznali emocije drugih ljudi, naročito djece. Svaki dan djeteta ispunjen je obiljem emocija. S druge strane likovni izričaj može biti mogućnost djetetu da svoje emocije, svoja stanja izrazi spontano i kroz igru, a s ciljem da bolje razumije samoga sebe, ali i druge koji ga okružuju. Crtanje djetetu predstavlja način izražavanja kojim otkriva nešto o sebi, svoj unutarnji svijet i kako doživljava stvarnost. Kroz likovni izričaj dijete može crtati sve što zna, sve čega se sjeća, a može obojati i ideju emocije. Dijete će lakše verbalizirati emocije sreće, tuge, straha i ljutnje kroz crtež jer je to nešto što im je blisko. Ono je projekcija njihova emocionalnog stanja. U svom radu usmjerila sam se na povezanost emocija i boja u dječjem likovnom izričaju. Istražila sam četiri osnovne emocije (sreća, tuga, strah i ljutnja) te koliko njihov utjecaj ima na odabir hladnih ili toplih boja kroz slobodni likovni izričaj potaknut čitanjem dječjih slikovnica o emcijama i razgovor o istima. Cilj je bio utvrditi zastupljenost boja u tim radovima, njihove omjere i povezanost sa emocijama. Rezultati su pokazali kako su djeca emociju sreće povezali sa toplim bojama, a negativne emocije straha, tuge i ljutnje sa hladnim bojama. Rezultat povezanosti određene boje s emocijom pokazao je kako djeca u prikazu emocije ljutnje nisu većinom koristili crvenu boju, kod emocije straha crna boja nije bila dominanta kako je pretpostavljeno. U prikazu emocije tuge najviše se koristila plava boja. Rezultati su ujedno i pokazali značajnu zastupljenost ljubičaste boje uz plavu i zelenu kod hladnih boja i narančastu kod toplih boja, dok se bijela nije upotebljavala.Emotions make us unique. The emotions we experience are diverse and complex and sometimes difficult to express verbally. Moreover, it takes a lot of effort to recognize other people’s emotions, especially children’s. Children’s everyday life is filled with different kinds of emotions. Artistic expression can be an opportunity for children to express their emotions spontaneously and through play, in order to understand themselves and others around them better. Drawing enables children to self-express by revealing something about themselves, their inner world and how they experience reality. Through artistic expression children can draw everything they know and remember, and also assign a colour to an emotion. Verbalizing the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear and anger through drawing is done more easily because children are familiar with these emotions. They are the reflection of their emotional state. In my research, I focused on the connection between emotions and colours in children's artistic expression. I explored four basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear and anger) and how much impact they have on choosing cold or warm colours in free artistic expression encouraged by reading children’s picture books about emotions and talking about them. The aim was to determine the usage of colours in these works, their number and their relation to emotions. The results showed that children associated the emotion of happiness with warm colors, while negative emotions of fear, sadness, and anger were drawn using cold colors. The research showed that children did not mostly use red for anger or black for fear, as assumed. However, blue was used the most in depicting the emotion of sadness. A significant amount of purple, together with blue and green, was used the most among cold colours, and orange among warm colours. White was not used at all