The Briarcrest PTA is proud to sponsor the Art Docent Program! Art Docents are volunteers that provide four art lessons a year to all of our students. We cover a wide variety of topics and world renowned artists. Our goal as Art Docent’s is to provide fun and engaging art based activities that help the students to build confidence and develop a love and appreciation for the art world. Your time volunteering will give students the opportunity to broaden their creative skills, explore the art industry, and gain confidence while building a knowledge and appreciation for art history and fabrication.

 

If you are interested in learning more or would like to volunteer to be an Art Docent email Danielle Wilson at bcartdocent@briarcrestpta.org. Please be sure to complete the school district's volunteer application before sending your email!

*Image from our Printmaking Project

Here’s some of our most FAQs

Who can become an Art Docent?


Anyone! While this is an arts education program volunteers are not expected to have any formal art education or training. All supplies and educational materials will be provided by the Briarcrest PTA. The only thing you need is a willingness to have fun and explore artistic styles and mediums at an elementary level with the students in your classroom.

Do I need to be a member of the PTA?


Nope, while we’d love to hear your unique voice as part of our PTA community no PTA membership is required to be an Art Docent. 

 

What’s the time commitment?


We’d like to have Each Art Docent will visit their assigned classroom 3 - 4 times during the school year. Typically lessons take 30-60 minutes plus a little extra time for set up and clean up. We also ask that Art Docents attend 2 - 4 training sessions throughout the school year, this will happen during the school day. If you’re unable to attend, we will do our best to work with you and meet in person or over zoom to go review our lesson plan and to go over any questions you may have. 

 

What will I do?


After receiving training you will need to schedule a time to visit your classroom with the teacher. We will have a 6 - 8 week window to schedule during, so there is flexibility to work with your individual schedule.  On the day of your classroom visit you will present a brief lesson focused on a specific artist, technique, or art style.

After this brief discussion you will lead the students in an engaging art activity inspired by this lesson. All supplies will be provided at the school.

 

What kind of projects have you done?


Click HERE to see some of the project’s we’ve worked on over the years.

 

How many Art Docents do you need?


Each Classroom will have at least one volunteer visit their classroom for each lesson. We are always happy to have more than one volunteer for each classroom though. Having an extra set of hands to assist is always helpful whether the lesson requires it or not. Some lessons will require more than one volunteer, if your classroom only has one volunteer the Art Docent Chairs will do all they can to assist in filling these needs. 

 

How do I sign up?


Email Danielle Wilson at bcartdocent@briarcrestpta.org. Please be sure to complete the school district's volunteer application before sending your email!


Kindness Rocks!

Just because our kindness challenge is ending doesn’t mean we need to stop being kind. Help us decorate the Briarcrest and North City neighborhoods with reminders to keep being kind all year. Find some rocks, get out your paint (markers or sharpies may also work) and get to work on your very own kindness rocks. Snap a picture when you find a kindness rock and get it to briarcrestart@gmail.com.


Art Docent at Home - Heart Shaped Animals

If you love a challenge you’ll love this creativity exercise. Pick out a 2-D shape (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, etc) and see how many different animals you can create using a single shape. To help get you started, spend some time coloring these fun heart shaped animals.


Art Docent at Home - Design your own Mittens

If you look closely you’ll see patterns everywhere! In nature, on buildings, and even on your clothes. Today we’re going to be textile designers. A textile designer's job is to use things like shapes and lines, often repeated, to create 2-dimensional art. These mini pieces of art are then put on fabric and turned into clothes! Let’s see what kind of interesting art you can come up with when you design your own mittens!


Art Docent at Home - Pontillism

All these beautiful fall colors have us feeling inspired! Join us in making your own Pointillism Fall Tree.

Pointillism (POINT - ILL - ISM) is a painting technique that uses small dots to make a picture. Pointillism was developed in 1886 by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. You can see one of Georges Seurat’s famous pointillism paintings below. In traditional painting we mix the colors before we put them on our canvas but with Pointillism we use the science of optics to blend the colors of the individual dots on the canvas. This is just like our computer or television screen, the pixels in your screen are just like the dots in a painting. We could spend all day talking about the science of art so we’ll simplify it for you. There are 3 things that make pointillism to work: color of the dots, placement of the dots, and the value (light or dark) of the dots. Who knew that art used things like science and math to make the images we create? Typically Pointillism art is done using oil paint but today we’re going to get creative and use what we have in our homes. Follow our step by step directions here.