Photo provided by Stephanie Burgard
Since 2011 Stephanie Burgard has been “bringing art to the masses” with her business Pinot’s Palette in Lakewood.
Pinot’s Palette has a staff of local artists who guide groups of adults step by step through featured paintings. Even people who aren’t so artfully inclined can usually manage surprising results, and for those who can’t even do that — well, there’s wine.
Now Burgard wants to take that mindset to the classroom (minus the wine part, of course), so she bought out Young Rembrandts of North Dallas, an afterschool art enrichment program.
“When I started looking at it, I realized it’s very similar to what we do now,” Burgard explains. “At Pinot’s it’s for adults, and with Rembrandts it’s for kids, but it’s still taught at a really broken down level, so they can have success really easily.”
And although Pinot’s Palette focuses on painting, and Rembrandts focuses on drawing and coloring, the format of the class is similar. Rembrandts’ art teachers walk kids step by step through drawings, using shapes kids recognize like triangles, circles or “U” and “W”.
“The kids don’t really have to know how to draw,” she says. “We’re giving them the foundation, and for artwork, drawing is the foundation. Once you know how to draw you can start adding on color and painting.”
Right now most of her classes are in schools in Far North Dallas and cities like Plano, Allen and McKinney, but she hopes that will change soon.
“What I’m working on now is bringing them to Lakewood and East Dallas,” she says. “My goal is to get into some of the public schools around here. We have afterschool programs, but they’re more childcare than education enrichment.”
Burgard believes art is important to everyone, so she wants everyone to feel like they can create it.
“We’re just trying to bring more art to the masses,” she says. “We don’t want people to say, ‘Oh I can’t paint or I can’t draw.’ Because they really can if someone teaches them to do it the right way.”
For parents who would like to see Young Rembrandts at their school, she says they should contact her directly at 214.427.7050. Learn more on the website.
