Today we were at a new paint night concept, ran by a husband and wife team, combining what they do professionally, in order to spend more time together, socially.
Hosted in their building’s common room with kitchen, dining table, couches, and even a pool table.
Our chef has 10 years of experience, graduating from VCC. Our artist has been a graphic designer for 15 years, creating with every medium available from sculpture, abstract, and even making her own jewelry.
The dining room was pre-set with canvases, a collection of brushes and a palate made from a sheet of plastic paper. Each attendee had their own workstation to create at, and a smock to protect our clothes from paint.
The goal today was to paint tomatoes with a display of Roma, sunripe, heirloom, San marzano, and cherry aka symphony tomatoes.
Each palate to pallet night centres around a theme, tonight this was Italian, hence the tomatoes. Our artist taught us how to paint tomatoes, and the chef would prepare a selection of Italian canapés, featuring tomatoes.
From what I can tell, the latter included a salad, a skewer of prosciutto and cherry tomatoes, tomatoes and an avocado spread on cracker, and a crab cake. Sadly, we did not get to try any of the food above.
Seeing as the location was their high rise, there was no business parking for guests. Parking could be found at nearby lots and at curb sides. However, the the max time for this was 2 hours and the event was advertised as being 3. The result is we had to move our car mid way. Plus the session started 40 minutes late, as we were asked to wait for stragglers. Therefore, we needed parking closer to 4 hours.
In the end we were unable to finish our painting, nor did we get to try any of the food. After taking the elevator ride down and walking all the way back to our cars, we didn’t really feel like taking the trip back to finish the task.
I did advise the owners to point out longer term parking options in the area, for their future guests, as this really hampered our experience.
Based on the description of the event, I honestly expected small bites throughout the 3 hours. Each served as they were made, on location, a few feet away from our work stations. I would have liked this instead of the assembly of food, made for presentation sake, and offered like a prize to claim once you finished your work. The result was I came hungry and painted hangry. Trying to satisfy myself on glasses of rose and handfuls of mixed nuts that were served. I admit this made the activity irritating, as my painting did not come out how I had envisioned.
As for the act of painting, it is really as you make it. Our resident artist offered tips and made herself available to help as needed. We learned how to mix colour with our own copy of the mixing wheel. And she went so far as to help me “correct” my painting mistakes.
In the future they hope to grow this concept and their community, branching out to do private events and birthdays.
@palettetopalatevancouver
