How to Host an Paint Night Art Party (Paint and Sip or Coffee and Canvases)

It seems that Painting Parties, both Sip and Paint and Coffee and Canvases types, are all the rage right now. Did you know, however, that you can host an entire party for several friends for the price of about one admission to a standard paint and sip night?

This is not the painting we used for our party, but is another of the paintings you can do from The Art Sherpa's tutorials. This was done entirely by my autistic son, Alex.

How To Begin

Your first task if you want to host a party is finding a painting that you want to paint. This decision will be influenced by how artistic the host is, how experienced your guests are and their ages or if it is a mixed-age group. If you are artistic enough yourself, you could come up with your own design, perhaps with just a quick browse for what types of paintings are usually done in a party setting. Remember, you want your guests to be able to paint the entire painting in length of time of your party, typically a few hours.

Katie's painting of Happy Chickadee and Apple Branch

I used one of the over 700 acrylic painting tutorials offered for free by The Art Sherpa. She ranks the difficulty of her paints into three categories, between 1, for the easiest, to 3 for the most difficult. I chose Happy Chickadee and Apple Branch because it was a level 1 painting as some of my guests had never painted before. The nice thing about the tutorials is that even the easiest projects are not boring the the more advanced painter.

My painting of Happy Chickadee and Apple Branch. Note the slight variations between Katie's and my paintings. Be prepared for this. Even though we each watched the same tutorial, each person's painting turned out a little different...all good, but each a bit unique.

You, as host, should paint the projects yourself before the party. This gives you an example for your guests to look at in case they have a troubling point and keeps the steps in your mind so you can help if they need it. It also gives you a chance to troubleshoot any possible difficulties in advance.

Notice that I have the painting I did in advance set up on an easel for guests to refer to.
I also have set the paints all at one end of the table. They will be passed around as needed, so you don't have to buy a separate set of paints for each guest.

Buy The Supplies

I usually buy my supplies at Michael's simply because it is a one-stop shop for me (I live in the Boonies, so it is an hour long trip, minimum to any store) and they often have sales for the items needed (not everything all at once, though, so if you live near a store, you might want to go multiple weeks to see if they have more of the items you need on sale each week). If you have another craft/art supplies store near you, you might want to check on their prices. You can find the items you will need at Walmart or Amazon as well.

What will you need? Well, if you are choosing to use an Art Sherpa tutorial, she has a concise list at the bottom of her tutorial. Just click on the title and look at the description below. 

Acrylic Paint and Canvasses

You will need several colors of paint. For our Happy Chickadee painting, we needed seven colors (Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, medium shade, Cadmium Yellow, medium shade, Mars Black, Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue and Yellow Ocher), which is a typical amount of colors. If you go to a store like Michael's, you will find that there will be at least three grades of paint, ranging from the beginner's Artist Loft, which is less expensive (around $4 a tube) to the Golden's professional paint, which is the most expensive (around $9 a tube). If this is a one time event, you might not want to spend a whole lot on the paints. However, I did want to tell you that if you buy the least expensive paint, you might have more trouble with coverage as the companies of lesser quality paint save money by putting less pigment in their paints. They are certainly fine for a party, but just be aware that you might have to paint the canvas twice, especially at the places you use lighter color paints, such as white and yellows.

You will need one canvas per guest. I usually buy 16 x 20 inch canvasses. They often come in five-packs. They also come in grades. The lowest grades may also have paint coverage problems with the gesso on the canvas. Not a big deal, but just be aware that if the paint does not go on your canvas smoothly, it is probably not your fault, but the canvas'. You can solve this problem by just drying the paint and applying another coat of paint.

Brushes

source: Art is Fun!

You will need a variety of sizes and styles of brushes. I have found for the beginning painting lessons that it doesn't matter a whole lot if you have the exact brushes called for in the tutorial, but it is important to have a variety so that if one type of brush is not getting the results you want, you can try another one. Of course you will need enough for everyone at your party to have a variety to choose from. If you want to know more about brushes and how the different shapes affect painting, Art is Fun! has a great post on this subject. Brushes, like paint and canvasses, have levels of quality, which will affect how easy the painting is to accomplish. If you are not sure how much you will be painting, I would start with the least expensive ones and add to the collection if you get hooked on painting as I have. Professional brushes can get very expensive.

Other Supplies

You will also need either cloths or paper towels to wipe your brushes out and clean up any spills or messes. I love kitchen flour sack cloths, but paper towels work just fine and are inexpensive.

You will need a cup of water and something to use as a pallet for each painter. I used regular plastic cups and paper plates for this.

Your guests may want to use a piece of regular kid's chalk to sketch in their painting. You may also want to provide a table easel for each guest. We had a few around the house (I have a college student daughter who is majoring in art) but they are not necessary and many of our guests just painted with the canvas flat on the table. 

Unless you want to just watch the tutorial and then teach how to do the painting yourself, you will need to have a way to display the tutorial from YouTube. I set up a television so that all the guests could see it and my husband worked the technical side by stopping the video periodically while guests painted and caught up to the tutorial.

You will also need to cover your table (and maybe even the floor and chairs) with a dropcloth. I used a thin plastic tablecloth that I picked up for a dollar.

You may want to buy refreshments, whether they be wine or coffee any other beverages of your choice. You might also want snacks or even a dinner. Since we needed to have the background of the painting to be dry before painting in the rest of the painting, I set up our party so that we painted in the background of the painting and then set it aside. While this dried, we ate dinner and then after dinner was over, we went back to painting. This required two places, one for painting and one for eating, however. You could, instead, just have finger foods and have everyone eat standing up or sitting in the living room while the paint dries. We served wine coolers while we painted the second part of the tutorial. An alternative to allowing the paint to dry, is to use a hair dryer to dry the paint.

The Day of the Party

On the day of the party, set up any decorations you might want to use and set up your drop cloths. Set up individual painting stations with all the supplies your painters will need. I just set the paint tubes at one end of the table and we just squeezed out a bit of paint as we needed it and then passed the tube around the table.

Prepare any refreshments you are serving. If the tutorial has a traceable, you will want to print that out for any guest that wants to use it. I find that rarely do you need one for the level one tutorials, however, as she explains how to paint everything very clearly. If you want to use a traceable, you will want to watch this tutorial on how to transfer an image to canvas.

The Party

Unless you have invited all experienced painters, expect your guests to be nervous about their ability to paint. Prepare them to expect the paintings look like children's art until the final highlights and lowlights are added to the painting. Reassure your guests and be prepared to give them step by step help. You may choose to paint with them, or just be available to give them the help they might need. It's a good idea to take a break at some point, even if you are not serving refreshments.

I hope this post reassures you that a painting party is not too difficult to host. However you choose to do your party, an art party is an inexpensive way to have fun with friends in a way that is tailored to your and your guests.

Super Blood Moon Eclipse Art

To continue with Alex's postcard art projects, we decided to celebrate the Super Blood Moon Eclipse that occurred on September 27. I got the idea from the Full Moon Trees art project from Art Projects for Kids, but we executed it a bit differently.

We started off with a postcard sized piece of cardstock. This size lends itself to well, sending as postcards, but also to fitting inside a schoolwork portfolio. I usually have Alex also write a paragraph about the subject in the piece and that makes a very fine portfolio of learning by the end of the year. I also find that small pieces are easier for my special needs student to accomplish without frustration or fatigue. All-in-all it works out well for us.

Anyway, back to the project at hand... first I traced a spice lid to use as our moon. If you think your student can do this himself, then by all means, have him do it, but I knew that Alex would struggle with this part, so I did it for him.  

Next, I had him use dark blue and purple chalk pastels to cover all of the card except the moon. I had him use his fingers to blend these colors a bit (a technique I learned from the Pastels Tutorials at Hodgepodge).

We then went on to add the black trees limbs using black tempera paint. He did most of the limbs, but since he had trouble add a fine touch with his brush, he let me add a few thin branches on the ends of his limbs. It really helped to make them look real. My goal is for Alex to have fun, learn a bit and accomplish his project, so if he needs help here and there, I have no problem with it. If you feel you want your child to do all of his own work and he is unable to do the fine work, then by all means, leave the finer limbs off. 

It was here that we remembered that we wanted to do a little orange-ish blood moon effect, so rather than leaving it out entirely, he went back and added some orange and red in the moon using chalk pastels. Because we had already painted the trees, it has a little bit of gaps where the tree limbs cross, but I actually in the end liked the effect a lot. If you would like it more even, then your student might want to add the orange in when he is working with the chalk pastels for the background. 

This is the second one of the same project. I have him complete two of them so I can send one as a postcard to his aunt, and save the second one for his portfolio.

Late Summer Dandelions Art Project

We began with a large postcard-sized piece of blue cardstock. Alex began by dipping his finger into the brown paint and pressing it on the paper to make the center of the dandelion head. He then took a small paintbrush and trailed a line down to make the stem. For some reason, he had a lighter than usual touch this week and the stem kinda fades out now and again. We took a break to let the brown paint dry. Later on, after the brown paint dried, he dipped his finger in white paint to make a dandelion puff. I figured out at this point that his sensory issues was making him not enjoy the paint on his fingers, so that was probably why he was hesitant with the paintbrush as well earlier. He managed to finish the project, however and I love how it turned out. We will add the poem below

 to it to make a portfolio page.

Late Summer Vignette 

by Patrick H.

The freshly severed heads

of dandelions

explode, silently, at the gentle

puff of a child’s breath.

Their hollow stems shed milky tears;

the seedlings fill the air.

source: Crafty Morning

123...I Can Paint! Complementary Colors and a Busy and Bright City Street

Pairs of colors, like blue and orange, green and red or purple and yellow are called complementary colors. They look extra bright and busy beside each other.

Let is turn these busy colors into a bright and lively city street.

Mix up gray paint, using a little black and a little white paint together. Cover the background to make a gray sky. Let this dry.

Using a spoon, drop blobs of paint on the background, putting complementary colors next to each other.

Press a square of cardboard on one blob of paint at a time, dragging it down to the bottom of the canvas.

Keep doing this until you have a painting full of colorful city buildings. Don't the colors together make the buildings jump out at you? Let this dry.

Now you can paint in the details. 

Paint in windows, a street at the bottom. You could add cars, people, planes or clouds...whatever you want.

sources and resources:

• 123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Cool Colors and Purple Mountains Majesty

Last week we made a painting using warm colors. This week we will make a painting using cool colors. Cool colors includes purple, green and blue.

First, using purple, paint a background for your painting. Let this dry.

Mix together a blob of the same purple paint you used for the background with a little white paint to make a light shade of purple. Using this purple, paint over the background three-quarters the way down the canvas.

While the paint is still wet, use a damp sponge or paper towel to rub triangle-shaped mountains along the horizon line. The horizon line is where the ground and sky meet. Let this dry.

Now you can add any details you would like. Use a very small brush to paint tiny, faraway trees on the sides of the mountains, a medium-sized brush for the bigger trees on the bottom portion of the picture. You can add a blue winding river that starts out wide at the bottom and narrows to just a point where it reaches the top of the horizon line.You could paint all sorts of details such as white,fluffy clouds or a big full moon. We made our moon by dipping a water-bottle cap in white paint and then onto the painting.

sources and resources:

• 123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Warm Colors and A Field of Flowers

Some colors seem warm and some seem cool. Red, yellow and orange are warm colors whereas green, blue and purple are cool colors. This week we are mixing and using warm colors to make a field of Black-eyed Susans (the Maryland state flower).

First mix the paints to make a warm light orange.

Use this for the background.

Once the background is dry, paint brown circles all over the background.

We dipped a wine cork in the paint and dabbed it on. You could also use a piece of cut sponge or just paint them freehand. They do not have to be perfect circles.

You can let this dry before adding on the petals, or you can just be careful not to smear the centers while you add on the petals. Either way, when you paint the petals, first mix up two shades of yellow -light yellow and a darker yellow. Using these different shades of yellow, paint the flower petals. We used fingers to paint on the petals.

For contrast, you can paint a strip of light, bright blue for the sky...

and some green stems and leaves. You can add any other details you would like to your painting.

Next week we will be working with cool colors.

sources and resources:

• 123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Tones and A Bird's-eye View

Every color can be lightened by mixing it with a little white paint or darkened by mixing it with a little black paint. The new colors are tones of the first color.

We filled three sections of his pallet with a little green paint. To one we added a bit of white paint and to another, we added black paint. We left the third section alone.

Just as we painted the blue paint to form the background for our ocean scene, we paint the background of this painting with the green paint. Let this dry before going on.

Paint a few squares on the background with the light green and a few squares with the dark green. Brown paint can become dirt roads. Let the painting dry before going on any further.

Once dry you can add the details of your bird's-eye view. You can use any colors you want for houses, cars and animals. Let this dry before adding the last touches.

sources and resources:

• 123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

1 2 3...I Can Paint!: Mix It Up! Primary and Secondary Colors

For Christmas Alex received an art set with acrylic paints and an art book. We will be doing weekly art projects that are simple enough for young or special needs students and yet interesting enough that perhaps some older students might want to do them, too. These would be great for a family art study. The first lesson is about primary and secondary colors and is simple enough to take just a few minutes and yet sets a great background for an ocean themed painting.

Blue, yellow and red are called primary colors. When you mix them, they make secondary colors green, orange and purple.

For this project, get out your primary colors and a surface to paint on. We are using acrylics and a small canvas, but you can use any paints such as tempera and any surface such as paper.

Paint your entire surface with blue paint.

Now, put some yellow paint near the top of your surface and mix it into some of the wet blue paint.

When the yellow mixes with the blue, it turns green.

Now, do the same at the bottom, using red paint this time.

As the red paint mixes with the blue, it becomes purple.

Now, let this background painting dry. We will turn this into an underwater world, with the light playing off the surface of the water, making it look green and the darkness at the bottom of the painting is a deep, dark purple.

Once your background is dry, we can begin to make our ocean scene.

We mixed some red and yellow paint together in various proportions  to make several shades of orange. You will also need some black, white and some blue to mix with some yellow to make shades of green. You will also need these supplies: brushes, cotton swabs, craft sticks, a pencil or any other supplies you would like to use to make the details.

Dip your thumb into the paint and press it onto your painting to make fish. You can make them fat, round fish with just your print straight on the surface, or you can drag your finger a little while moving it up to make a longer fish.

 Using a paintbrush or cotton swab, you can add the details of fins and tails.

 With a craft stick you can add stripes to your fish...

and a pencil can be used to add the eyes. Using the pencil, you can also add white dots for bubbles.

Mix some blue and yellow together to make shades of green and add some water plants. Add the darker shade of green on one side of the plant to give it depth. You can any other details you want.

sources and resources:

• 123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher