When it comes to paint and sips, we like to think that Uncorked Inspiration is \u201cdifferent\u201d than the rest. Of course, your definition and our definition of different may be\u2026 well\u2026 different, but our idea is that we love our friends and we want to go above and beyond. Oh, and we\u2019re probably just a bit weird. Okay, I\u2019m just a bit weird. Andrea\u2019s pretty normal. That being said, there are a few things that we do that are fairly standard in this business, and sometimes, it\u2019s fun just to talk about the process so that people have some idea of what they\u2019re getting into when they come to one of our paint and sip events.
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How long does it take?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Short answer: About two hours. In most instances, each painting event runs over a two hour time period. Sometimes we run over, and sometimes it\u2019s a bit shorter. One thing we like to ensure, though, is that for you, it\u2019s a two-hour break from the chaos of life. Longer answer: The short answer was about your painting time. But what really goes into a paint and sip painting event? That\u2019s a great question. In many cases, I\u2019ve prepped a painting quite awhile in advance. I might come up with an idea, or see a photo that I like, or take my own photos and work from multiple sources to create a new painting. This process is kind of \u201coff the clock\u201d since I don\u2019t really track how long I spend taking photos of things I like, or looking through reference photos. Once I have the idea and some references, I\u2019ll sit down and paint. My rule of thumb is that if I can paint the painting within 40-minutes, then it will be a good two hour painting for one of our events. So, I paint the painting, we number it and catalog it, then we take a photo of it to use for social advertising and for our event ticketing system. That process adds another 20-minutes or so. So now we\u2019re up to an hour of prep. After that, I\u2019ll place the photo in my ad template in Photoshop, save and upload for Andrea to use, and she takes the ad and posts it on our ticketing platform. Add another 20-minutes for this. So, now we\u2019re up to a an hour and 20. Once the ad is posted, Andrea does some social promotion on Facebook and sometimes Instagram. Maybe ten minutes on this for one ad. (She generally does a month or two at a time, though, so I\u2019m not 100% sure on how long she spends on each one). But with this, we\u2019re at an hour and a half. Now we get to the event. We do prep and set up for the event. This includes pouring paint, setting up easels, placing paper towels and brushes and paint out, along with some general clean up. Most of this depends upon how many painters we have coming to our event. But for our average, if we set up for about 20 people, it takes around 30-minutes to do all of this. Unless the painting has more than 4 or 5 colors, in which case add another ten minutes. So now we\u2019re up to two hours of total prep time for an event with a new painting. We do the event, which takes two hours. Then we clean up, which generally takes about 30-minutes. So, for one event with a new painting, we\u2019ve put in about four and a half hours worth of time and effort. But the one thing that people don\u2019t think about is the time that it took me to learn how to do these techniques. I\u2019ve been painting since I was in sixth grade. Add in the time that I\u2019ve spent watching Bob Ross, or drawing, or looking at painting tutorials\u2026 and for Andrea to do the bookkeeping and the ads, and the social media\u2026 and don\u2019t forget if I do a blog post or have to update the website\u2026 I think you get the picture. Sure, we make it look fun and easy, but we\u2019ve done a lot of prep work. But the thing about how much time we\u2019ve spent getting ready for this? I think you could honestly say it\u2019s been a lifetime. Working from background to foreground<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One concept that I teach in most of my paint and sip events is the idea that we work from background to foreground. Traditionally, this has been the case for artists since time immemorial. As painters, we want to develop the background in such a way that our middleground and foreground provide the illusion of depth. This means no white halos of canvas around our foreground or middle ground items. In short, they need to overlap. For this reason alone, I teach that we work on the background first, then as needed, we paint our middle and foreground elements over the background. For most paint and sips, this is especially effective when we have silhouettes in the foreground, since black is a very opaque color and can cover the background quite nicely. Color schemes<\/strong> Color is always fun. So many decisions to make and so little time to make them. Many of our paint and sips focus on paintings that have, on average, about four colors. In most cases, these paintings feature an analogous color scheme, which basically means a couple of colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel plus black and white. For example, an analogous color painting might include ultramarine blue, pthalo green, black, and white. But with just those four colors, you can create a multitude of beautiful paintings by simply tinting the blue and green with white, or shading them with black, and even mixing the green and blue with varying degrees of each to create new colors. We\u2019ve also noticed that the paintings that seem to be relatively popular only feature a few colors, and many times those trend toward the cooler (blue) side of the spectrum. Obviously, there are exceptions, but when blue, black, and white or purple, black, and white with a hint of red are popular\u2026 you go with them. \t Freestyle vs Pre-drawn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This will, in all likelihood, be the most debated issue we face. Do we do a canvas that we simply approach with paint and brush, or do we do one that\u2019s more complex that might require a pre-drawn sketch for our friends? I\u2019m always torn. In most cases, I love freestyle painting. Obviously, there\u2019s a certain freedom to it, but I always enjoy the challenge of teaching techniques that allow anyone to learn to paint and create a painting they can be proud of. On the other hand, I love the idea of doing paintings that have a bit more complexity. Perhaps it\u2019s the silhouette of a wolf or a mermaid. The thing is, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a right or wrong, because bottom line, we get to paint! How many brushes do we really need?<\/strong> Man, this one. I always worry about it. For most paint and sips, we set out three brushes. The one-inch \u201cman\u2019s brush\u201d (Yeah, I\u2019ll blog about that), the \u00bd-inch \u201chonest brush\u201d and my least favorite\u2026 the small round brush. I put these brushes out, and sometimes even tiny liner brushes or fan brushes, because I want people to have that \u201cartist\u201d feeling. That feeling of, \u201cHey look at all these cool brushes!\u201d I guess, in short, I want them to feel as if they\u2019re getting their money\u2019s worth. But do we really need all of those brushes? \tTechnically, no. In fact, I was once watching an episode of the Joy of Painting, and Bob Ross stated, very nonchalantly, \u201cI think I can do most of these paintings with just my old two-inch brush\u2026\u201d I thought about that for a moment, and I realized that he was probably right. I also realized that for the most part, I can probably paint most of our paint and sip paintings with my trusty one-inch \u201cman\u2019s brush\u201d. As an artist we use the tools we have at hand. If we don\u2019t have a filbert brush, or an oval brush, or a liner brush, we find a way to make what we have work. It\u2019s the same way with paint and sip paintings. If I were pressed to do it, I could most likely use just my one-inch brush and a bit of creativity to paint all of the paintings in our catalog. I paint faster than you<\/strong> Okay, fine. It\u2019s not a competition, but the fact of the matter is, I do. And that\u2019s actually okay. There\u2019s a reason why I paint as fast as I do, and it has to do with how I teach and how I interact with all of my friends at our events. As most of you know, I\u2019m an extravert. I love chatting with people, having fun, goofing around, and even teaching techniques every now and then. When I paint fast, it gives me the opportunity to show the technique (sometimes more than once), then walk around the room and spend one-on-one time with each painter so that I can provide feedback, help, or to simply compliment them on what a wonderful job they\u2019re doing. So please, there\u2019s absolutely no pressure on you to keep up with me. Unless of course\u2026 you want to race. Have fun!<\/strong> Here\u2019s the thing, my friends. The bottom line at all of our events is that we want you to have fun. It\u2019s easy to pick yourself apart. It\u2019s easy to be cynical and feel as if you \u201ccan\u2019t do it\u201d. But please, for the sake of yourself, try to have fun with it. The thing about paint and sip events is that yes, you\u2019re here to paint, and you want to come away with a cool painting. However, how often do you paint? Have you done it for your entire life? Then cool. You\u2019re here. You\u2019re having fun. You might be drinking a little bit of wine. Let\u2019s just paint and see what happens. We\u2019re so relaxed and into Bob Ross that we never make mistakes\u2026 just happy accidents. When it comes to paint and sips, we like to think that Uncorked Inspiration is \u201cdifferent\u201d than the rest. Of course, your definition and our definition of different may be\u2026 well\u2026 different, but our idea is that we love our friends and we want to go above and beyond. Oh, and we\u2019re probably just a bit weird. Okay, I\u2019m just a bit weird. Andrea\u2019s pretty normal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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