McCormick Elementary
National Museum of Mexican Art: Nuestras Historias Artist Residency
During my time at the NMMA as their Art Residency Coordinator, I had the privilege of working with many CPS Teachers and Students in leading an eight session long artist residency that surveyed Mexican & Mexican-American Art History from the NMMA’s Permanent Collection, Nuestras Historias. Part of this residency I worked along with a CPS Teacher in creating hands on workshops of a specific art technique to bring arts integration into the classroom.
2nd Grade
In these two art classes, artists were looking at portraiture work and photographers such as Laura Aguilar. These artists were introduced to a type of photographic making called Cyanotypes, or sun prints. Learning about the sun and photosensitive material, these young artists created many different forms of Cyanotypes using objects, photography and drawing. Thanking about what items and objects make up their own personal “portrait” artists collected small toys, twigs and stones in creating their first cyanotype. Later artists used disposable cameras to use the negatives to create actual portraits. Artists were free to draw on their prints using natural dyes such as coffee and green tea. The finishing piece was to create a full body cyanotype using their whole selves as part of the portrait.
