Painting and sipping.

Have you ever gone to an event where an artist leads you through a “paint and sip”? If you haven’t done that before, I highly recommend it, because it can be a really fun and entertaining way to spend a few hours. When you sign up, you’ll get a full explanation from the host or the artist, but generally, you can take your own wine, or you can buy some of the venue’s cheap house wine. The host will situate everyone at a table, where each person is given an easel and some paints. Then, an artist leads everyone through the steps for painting some cheesy subject matter. The whole group of participants paints the same thing at the same time, for the most part.

Me painting back in 2019.

I went to two or three paint and sips, which some might say is cheating, since I’d obviously have an advantage, but that really didn’t matter, and it was a lot of fun with my friends. As I sat there painting and following along each time that I participated, I thought to myself, “I could definitely lead one of these.”

Then the pandemic came, and we were all stuck at home. In order to kill some time, I offered to lead a paint and sip for my husband and our “pod” or “bubble” friends (the exclusive “safe” couple that we hung out with in person during the pandemic).

I thought through how I would go about recreating the painting ahead of time so that I would be able to effectively lead them through the process when the time came. I must have done a great job, because we all replicated the painting pretty well, and we had a really fun time doing it.

There was a slight catastrophe during our paint and sip when some black paint spilled on the white carpet(!), but luckily we were able to clean it up quickly enough so that it didn’t leave a permanent stain.

I would love to lead another paint and sip in the future if any of our friends would be interested in a relaxed and fun afternoon or evening sometime.

Have you ever done a paint and sip? I’d love to see the outcome!

Here’s another instance where I lead: