Bringing the Artist Out with Bottle and Brush

The sight of a paintbrush used to intimidate me – I was one of those. Add paint and a canvas – I wouldn’t know where to begin. But hand me a glass of wine – I’m in. So wine and paintbrush together…I figured I could give it a try.

With my boyfriend Luke Collins and a bottle of red wine in tow, I entered the Artists Guild on a quiet Friday night to create a complete painting in just a few hours. We tied our smocks, examined the series of brushes at our table, and exhaled at the sight of the blank white canvas.

Slattery’s completed Bottle & Brush painting.

“We’re going to go through this step by step,” co-instructor and Artists Guild co-owner Sarah Bradley assured the crowd of novice painters, all above the age of twenty-something, while her husband Jeff Bradley, co-instructor and co-owner, squirted blue, white, and green paint on our paper plates.

The couple provided patient, thorough, and often humorous instruction. We created our surprisingly diverse backgrounds – some opted for smaller strokes, others for darker skies. With generous gobs of paint on my brush, I went back and forth across the canvas for thick, wide strokes of night sky, adding green here and there for a subtle suggestion of the Northern Lights.

I felt good, loose and captivated by the process. I felt in control…but not too in control. I felt like an artist, a confident artist as we took the next steps – creating black branches, a full moon, a proud stag, and stars – with the Bradleys peering over our shoulders, offering suggestions, advice, complements, laughter, and refills of wine.

We dried our finished paintings with paint-speckled hairdryers, the pride of each participant almost palpable in the classroom.

“What’s lovely about [Bottle and Brush] is it’s an opportunity for folks who really have no experience with painting to come and have a night to push paint around, but they’re not put on the spot in terms of ability – it’s really a social event,” says Sarah. “You get to chat to the people next to you, get support from the people next to you, you can nibble or sip a glass of something and really relax. Everybody is in sort of a vulnerable position, but they all walk away filled full.”

Agreed. We left feeling pretty darn satisfied with our experience and ourselves. Straightaway, 9 am the next morning, we returned to the Artists Guild to pick up our framed artwork. That’s right, we’re artists.