Drink and Daub – The pet portrait classes that just add alcohol
Published: 09 June 2018:
At Cork and Canvas alcohol isn’t called liquid courage, it is called liquid creativity.
The BYO art studio is the enterprise of American expat Melinda Janiszewski, who first opened the business in Melbourne in 2013 after seeing the success of the paint-and-sip concept in the US.
Image: Melinda Janiszewski with Pickles, a Beagle. Photographed at Cork and Canvas Sydney Studio on Oxford St Darlinghurst. Photo: James Brickwood
It proved such a hit, she launched a Sydney branch in April, conveniently located opposite a bottle shop.
“Drinking and painting is the perfect combination,” says Janiszewski. “Most people at the beginning hold the paintbrush like a pencil, their hand so tight and clenched. As soon as they start having a little wine or champagne their hand releases, the flow of their brush starts moving nicer. It just helps a bit with unleashing your inner artist.”
While some sessions see students create artworks in the style of Van Gogh, Munch and Hokusai, the most popular pick on their program is the Paint Your Pet class.
Participants submit photographs of their animals prior to the lesson, which are hand sketched by Cork and Canvas’s in-house artists ready to be painted by would-be artists on the day. In the three-and-a-half-hour class students then learn techniques to create lifelike eyes and realistic fur. So far, pets have run the gamut from the expected cats and dogs, all the way to more unusual creatures such as sloths, ferrets and goats.
The studio is open to all levels of artistic skill, with Janiszewski saying even the utterly untalented are welcome to pick up a palette. “As long as you can hold a glass in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, you’re good.”
…
Thank you NICOLE ELPHICK of THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD for her article [source link]