Mother, Monet I?

I kept seeing photos of friends at corporate team-building painting parties, and I was so jealous!  So, I decided to find one of these painting party places and organize an adventure.  For my October GNO, I invited about a thousand people to come along to Painting With a Twist in Dallas to paint a scene from Monet’s Venice.  We would be doing an impression of the great Impressionist himself.  Fun!

Painting with a Twist is BYOB, so I bought a massive bottle of Lambrusco and a couple of bags of Ghirardelli chocolates to share, and picked up a Cosmopolitan magazine because the cover looked like hilarious amounts of fun, and off I went.

 

 

At Painting With a Twist, you walk in to find your place set up with your canvas on an easel, your paint and paintbrushes waiting for you, and a super friendly, super helpful, super supportive staff there to walk you along from blank canvas and your terrified googly eyes, to a masterpiece and face shining with pride (or too much wine.)  Our team was Victoria, who guided us through the painting process, and Amber, who walked among us offering encouragement, tips, and clean-up supplies for those of us who needed them.  (I only dropped one paintbrush full of paint on the floor, narrowly missing Karen’s purse.)

 

If you are intimidated by the blank page, I think this is a great way to overcome the fear of the empty and start making art.  You’re surrounded by friends (or just friendly people, as the come-alone-guy who sat to my left discovered–he drank a LOT of my wine) and support, and fun outweighs the fear of failure.

 

We all ended up having a terrific time, and produced varying likenesses of Monet’s work.  But I must emphasize that it was the fun that made this $45 of worthwhile.  I will definitely be going again.

 

Our instructor had a lot of suggestions for what to do with our finished work:  In-Law Christmas present, White Elephant Exchange, Bathroom Art.  Thor claimed mine, but said he’d like to put it in his closet.  Ha!