There are lots of things that you would generally expect to see at the bar: people watching the game, people enjoying an over-sized platter of nachos and a round of pints, people talking loudly as they unwind after a hard day’s work …
… and people painting.
Yup, nowadays you should also expect to see a room full of people all sitting around their easels playing with brushes and splotches of acrylic paint on palettes, and creating their very own pieces of art all in less than two hours.
Drinking and painting is the newest craze that’s sweeping the pub and cafĂ© scene. It officially started in the United States with something called Sips’n’Strokes in 2004 but has grown across state borders and international boundaries. Wikipedia says that the North American paint and sip industry contains more than 1,000 companies.
Here in St. Albert, you’re most likely to see names like Paint Nite, SmashArt, and Art After Dark. Garrett Plummer has been leading these sessions since last fall through Paint Nite, an organization whose motto is “Drink Creatively.”
“They encourage the people to drink,” he said. “It kinda loosens you up.”
Paint Nite started only four years ago but now boasts more than 250,000 likes on its Facebook page and events in more than 150 cities around the world. Plummer has hosted around 70 of these events so far, with at least one or two every week, and no signs of slowing down yet. He’s got new events lined up until the end of June, as do many of his cohorts. There are currently more than 400 events all set to go around metro Edmonton area (including St. Albert and Sherwood Park) between now and October.
Courtney Osgood, the group’s New York-based public relations manager, explained that the events are often popular as ‘date night’ evenings and they are very popular indeed.
“Our events sell out frequently, sometimes weeks in advance,” she stated. “The number of customers depends on the venue – but anywhere from about 30-40 people is average ... and yes, we're continually expanding – adding new cities to our roster each month.”
Plummer noted that he got his own start by attending Paint Nites and even though he wasn’t really following the program, he enjoyed them so much that he just had to be at the head of the class paint night after paint night.
“I went to two of them. I never painted what they taught. You can paint your own thing,” he clarified. “I just liked the experience … the atmosphere of painting around all of these people.”
The concept is pretty simple. People are provided with all of the necessities, including the canvas, easel, brushes and paint. The leader – sometimes using a microphone, depending on the general noise level of the establishment – shows the class the sample painting that they will be making their own version of during the evening. It’s far from being a paint by number program and you end up with a work that you can call all your own, even if dozen or more people will have essentially the same picture going to their own walls.
On a typical week in St. Albert, you could walk into events put on by Paint Nite and SmashArt at the Celtic Knot and the Enjoy Centre. Art After Dark, a new and local entry on the drinking and painting scene, takes the Perron District at Privada and the Vinyl Rock Café.
Creator Tyler Dianocky is probably better known for his musical artistry with Tupelo Honey but he’s certainly gaining a lot of notoriety for his visual artistry through Art After Dark, which he created last summer. Sharing the gift is in his blood, he said.
“I taught a lot of music, too,” he began. “You always learn while you’re teaching. It’s a blast!”
It makes for an excellent corporate social event too, as it breaks the ice in a fun way. Part of that might be that Dianocky often takes a pop culture subject like the Lion King or Star Wars as his exemplars for the students to recreate. They have to be simple paintings, he noted.
“They have to be in a format that’s easy enough that someone with no experience can do and still look very cool. You don’t want to make it look like you’re doing a pre-school project. You want it to be something that someone would be proud of and hang it up in their home when they’re done.”
His students have responded by telling him how pleased they are with their creations. Dianocky’s creation, in turn, is taking root. The gamble is paying off and in a big and surprising way as he’s preparing to take the stage as a modern day Bob Ross-type painting instructor on TV.
He announced that Art After Dark is going to be a public access show starting in the fall, providing a new opportunity for artistic types to get together in groups, share a bottle of vino, and splash some colours around.
“With today’s technology, you can pause it, you can record it … so people can do these at home and have a little party, get all their friends together to do it.”
