We tried a paint and sip class and hello, perfect winter group activity!

Posted on 5 July, 2023

The weather outside is frightful. So, here’s how to get the gang together this winter, sans puffer jackets.

There are so many fun group activities that go out the window during winter. Swimming. Picnics. Eating outdoors. Drinking outdoors. Being outdoors.

So, what group activities can you do in the cooler months? Well, we’ve done the hard yards for you (ahem, drank wine and ate pizza) in the name of research.

The weather was indeed filthy as my colleague Dion and I made our way to Paint Pinot’s new Kingston space, on leafy Giles Street. Luckily, it was toasty inside and cosy coats were immediately swapped for a cosy glass of Nick O’Leary Shiraz. Not a bad start for a Thursday evening.

For the uninitiated, ‘paint and sip’ classes like Paint Pinot’s have a simple concept behind them—that creativity is best unleashed when you’re relaxed, with friends and have a glass of something in your hands (amen). Given a canvas, paint and instruction, over the course of an evening you’ll re-create a painting to take home—with wine, pizza and snacks, of course.

Founder of Paint Pinot and artist herself Tina Hansen-Jones—whose background includes studying fine art and designing jewellery and clothing lines—first heard about the concept after her son attended a paint and sip class in Canada almost a decade ago.

Deciding it could be the perfect match for her talents, Tina started hosting events in 2016 with a modest kit that cost “$1000”, whizzing between bookings in Canberra, the Sutherland Shire, Wollongong, and the Southern Highlands, where she lives.

“I got such a good response that I felt like I needed to spread the love, so to speak,” she laughs. Falling in love with a “quirky” space at 27 Lonsdale Street, Braddon in 2018, Paint Pinot launched a permanent schedule of events into the Canberra market to roaring success, with a second space opening in Kingston in October 2022.

From birthday gatherings to hen’s parties and corporate functions, Paint Pinot does it all, but their most popular offering is their weekly painting sessions, which are open to anyone over 18. Painting sessions rotate weekly through a variety of colourful paintings and styles, with special occasion events a particular highlight (keep an eye on Paint Pinot’s website for details about their Christmas in July events).

 

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Unlike other paint and sip offerings, Paint Pinot is fully licensed, with bars at both venues and a full kitchen at Kingston with an extensive menu. Like a restaurant—with craft. The ultimate ice breaker for a second date, family catch up or team event? We think so.

As for those who feel nervous about painting in a group—don’t be. Tina says that her classes are always a diverse mix of people—“some people come in going ‘I’m going to paint like this and this’ while others are being dragged in by someone”—but at the end of the night people leave with a smile on their faces, and a very unique artwork. Talent (or interest in art) is not a prerequisite for Paint Pinot.

“The objective is to have a good time and just have a go at something you normally wouldn’t,” says Tina. “If you come away with a painting you really like, that’s just a bonus.”

She adds that paint and sip classes are also the perfect no-commitment way to approach painting in a serious way.

“A lot of people want to get into painting with good quality tools—but then you have to spend hundreds of dollars just to set up one painting and then you discover you don’t really know where to start.”

Luckily, Dion and I didn’t have that issue. After grabbing a couple of chairs where a blank canvas and palette of archival quality paints were ready and waiting, we’re introduced to Josh, our artistic guide for the evening, and launch straight into our painting—Autumn in the Rain.

Autumn in the Rain, painted by Tina.

As Josh walks us (oh so patiently) through the painting—from showing us how to properly use the high-quality paints to how to blend them on the canvas—another highlight arrives—the food. Chef Eliza has created the perfect menu of only-one-hand-needed food and Dion and I inhale the herbed polenta chips. A prosciutto and rocket pizza arrives next (my favourite) alongside chicken tacos (Dion’s favourite) and we happily munch away as the details come to life on the canvas. Well, on Dion’s canvas, anyway.

My canvas is starting to resemble something by a five year old but honestly, that’s half the fun and Josh is so kind in his diplomatic feedback—“great shading around that side”, “I love what you’ve done with the reflection of light there”—that I don’t feel self-conscious. Besides, if you have pizza, wine, a mate and the heating on, could it really be that bad? No, it could not.

While I think the archival-quality paints were perhaps not strictly necessary for the shifty-looking raccoon I chose to paint as the finishing detail instead of the classic ‘couple holding hands in the middle of the romantic laneway’, it certainly finishes the night on a high note.

A group activity with no puffer jackets required? It gets the raccoon of approval from us.