A masterpiece created in a studio of fun
The Paint ‘n’ Sip studio in Ilam offers people the chance to complete a painting from start to finish in the space of two hours, while having a bit of fun. I went along last week to see if it was as easy as it appeared to be.
originally published in The Star, January 30, 2015
I have to admit that at first, I was terrified.
I’m not sure I have an artistic bone in my body, and even though this was sold to me as a fun, anyone-can-do-it, evening activity, I couldn’t help but think about the possibility of complete and utter failure, and the ensuing embarrassment.
The Paint ’n’ Sip Studio sits on the corner of Creyke and Ilam Rds, across the road from Canterbury University, in a new building that sprung up in the middle of last year.
On this sunny evening in mid-January, the room is filled with a beautiful natural light, which falls gently on the many paintings that adorn its walls.
Arriving 10 minutes before the session starts, at 7pm, I get myself a beer to sip on, before grabbing my apron and heading over to my station, ready to paint.
The big blank canvas is daunting; it’s hard to see how I’m going to make it look like the example painting, which is sat on an easel at the front of the room.
The artwork we’re painting is called Timid Tui; the background on the example is red, but I choose to do mine in blue, my favourite colour.
Sam, one of the studio’s instructors, stands by the painting up front, and runs us through how it’s going to work. She introduces us to the three brushes — Big Daddy, Pointy Pete, and Thin Thelma — which will be our tools for the night.
The first step is to draw in the tui, and the branch it sits on, in pencil, with the useful proviso that we will be able to change our plans later on, when we come to paint over.
Then comes filling in the background, the most labour intensive task of the night. Paint on both sides of the brush; back and forth, back and forth, all over the canvas, except for where my Tui’s going to go.
It’s about here that my curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask what the perfect white circle on the tui’s throat is supposed to be.
Almost instantly, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
It’s the little tuft of feathers, I am told, and the whole room starts to query whether I’ve ever actually seen one. (To be fair, that had been my guess).
I’m accused of having lived in the city for too long, and when I admit that I’m an Aucklander, it begins to make sense.
Having reassured everyone that I do know what a tui is, now it was time to paint one.
Whereas with the big splash of blue, it was pretty much a free for all and therefore hard to make a mistake, this was a task of precision.
Even once I’d filled in my outline, and had a pretty decent looking tui on my canvas, I kept going back for little touch-ups here and there.
I’d gone from being terrified of screwing it up completely, to now wanting it to look as perfect as possible.
Eventually, I decided enough was enough — I was just going to have to let it be, go have myself a snack, and finish my beer.
After a wee break, and with the bulk of the work done, it was on to the flax bushes, which required mixing white and yellow together, then the branch, which needed black and green.
Then, just like that, I was done.
The blank canvas that had seemed so daunting just two hours earlier was now a tui sitting idly on a branch, and I was more than happy to claim it as my work.
When I began, I had thought I might send it home to my mum, but now I think I might just have to keep it.
The Paint ’n’ Sip Studio is the creation of Amanda Anthony, who was inspired by a concept that first began in her home town of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“It was started by two ladies who did it as a fundraising thing,” she said.
“But the whole idea of speed painting and wine took off across Louisiana and then everyone who visited Louisiana came and brought the idea back to their state.”
At the time, Ms Anthony, now 29, was studying landscape architecture, and her studies eventually took her to Australia, where she met her fiance Shannon Aram — a Kiwi.
When they were unable to return to Australia to live, they decided to come here instead, settling in Tauranga. They were intending to move across the ditch eventually, but they fell in love with the New Zealand lifestyle.
They moved to Christchurch about a month before the February 2011 earthquake, meaning Ms Anthony was caught up in her second big natural disaster in the space of six years.
She said that while there were some similarities, there were also key differences.
“(In New Orleans) we still had a city — we had our heart, we had our soul, but Christchurch not so much — you lost that centre.”
She was moved to set up the Paint ’n’ Sip Studio, as something fun and new for the recovering city, after her work as a landscape architect seemed to grow more and more monotonous.
“You just get to that point where you just need something new and different,” she said.
A friend back home had set up her own studio in upstate New York, and after turning to her for some advice, and a year of planning, Ms Anthony opened her own last August.
By taking a look at the calendar on the studio’s website (www.paintnsip.co.nz) anyone interested can pick a night where a painting they would like to paint is being taught and buy a ticket to head along.
Each session costs $45, which gives you the canvas, the paints you need, and a range of nibbles to snack on; beer, wine and other drinks are available to purchase from the bar.
