Teaching Artist Residency Program – Fall 2018

As students are settling into their classes and fall is on the horizon, the Chicago Studio is welcoming a new group of students from Vaughn Occupational School.  We’re continuing work started last spring as part of our Teaching Artist Residency Program (TARP).

 

After having a break over the summer, teaching artist, Christina Zion, identified her topics and planned out the lesson to prepare for the students’ arrival.  She emphasized the important fundamentals of Value and Color. Calling on prior experience teaching students from Vaughn and Esperanza helped her to approach this session with confidence.  “It was easy to get things together. This year we’re doing different projects. For value, we had to plan it out, and get ready. It felt good to choose, because I knew the lesson. I was comfortable with it.  It felt awesome!”

 

The first lesson focused on Value.  Starting off with a discussion of what the term meant, students practiced identifying a range of values from light to dark.  Then students made a value scale of their own before collaborating on a large drawing. Each student received a mystery section of a larger image by Sesshu Toyo, an artist from Feudal Japan.  They worked to identify and copy the different values they observed. When everyone was finished, students combined their individual pieces to see the full picture.

 

This reveal was the highlight for Christina, “I was really excited about the mystery picture, where they had to draw them out and put them together.  I liked how they did it. I say they did a good job! It made me feel proud to see all the pictures together.”

 

Christina attentively checked in on students’ progress as they worked and offered 1:1 feedback.  And her students responded in kind. They were active participants, raising their hands and contributing to dialogue about the piece.  They also shared about Vaughn’s motto for students to S.O.A.R at the beginning of class.

 

We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Vaughn students and facilitators.  We are excited to see young artists develop their creativity! 

 

Check out some samples of student work below.