Art from home: Paint night events prove popular during pandemic
For some families, quarantine isn’t about staying apart, but becoming closer with the help of a few paintbrushes, paint, paper and canvases.
Early on in the COVID-19 quarantine period, Halifax, N.S. resident Tisha White was looking for something to do with her nine-year-old daughter Claire Lumsden. She noticed a social media post about a virtual paint night on Zoom and signed them up.
“It was a good way for us to sort of do something different,” she says. “We can sit down and paint ourselves, but for someone to lead us through the painting, it was really good.” Claire agrees
“I liked spending time with (my mom) and learning new techniques, so then when we did other paintings, we could use those techniques,” she says.
White says most of this type of event seems to be geared toward adults, which makes it difficult for some people to participate.
“I’m a single parent, so it’s harder for me to make arrangements to get a sitter and actually take part,” she says. “This allows me to take part and do something with her because sometimes these events aren’t catered to kids participating.”
That’s also the reason Annette Nippard, from Halifax, N.S., took part in an event with her 10-year-old daughter, Olivia Bazagar.
“It’s just the two of us, so it can get a little bit boring at times and she loves to paint; it’s one of her favourite activities,” says Nippard. “We found two of them and we really enjoyed doing them.”
Along with painting with her mom, Olivia liked seeing the final product.
“I liked that you got to see how good it turned out,” she says.
Nippard, meanwhile, says she herself found a talent she didn’t know she had.
“I learned that I can paint; I never thought I could, and to follow someone along who knows what they’re doing, it’s not as complicated as I had anticipated,” she says. “I learned that I could probably love doing it as a hobby.”
Many painting organizations and groups on the East Coast have hosted online events since March, when the provinces entered a quarantine-like state. Facebook groups were also formed, like Quarantine Paint Night, and events were hosted by organizations like That Art Thing and Yaymaker Halifax (formerly Paint Nite Halifax).
As soon as the quarantine happened, Yaymaker Halifax owner Kourtney Prentice said her organization switched to alternative delivery models.
“It was just another way to continue offering our events,” she says. “We just had to get used to the technology, (but) other than that, it was pretty straightforward.”
As with most paint night events, there is a set painting that participants are expected to copy. Over the course of an hour or two, they are guided through a step-by-step process by an instructor, which for virtual events, was usually through Zoom. For the events White and Nippard took part in, there wasn’t a per person fee, but rather a per household fee, which meant anyone on the Zoom call from a household could take part.
Both Nippard and White said participants could use whatever supplies they had available, if they didn’t exactly have what the instructor was using.
“You don’t have to go get anything fancy,” says White. “You could use paper, canvas, watercolour, acrylics; it doesn’t really matter.”
Prentice says for Yaymaker’s online events, they can drop off supplies to participants.
“We were lucky that we have a storage facility with all of our venue supplies and were well stocked up,” she says. “We are able to offer a delivery service, so customers can send us a message on a Facebook page and tell us what they want, like canvases and paint; we’ve also been selling off our gently-used brushes, easels and aprons.”
While she enjoyed the whole process, White did miss the in-person aspect.
“Over Zoom, it was hard, especially when there were so many people participating,” she said. “(The instructor would) say, ‘OK, show me what you have,’ and people would hold it up, but it was more like general complimenting, as opposed to giving any real feedback.”
Still, it’s something she like to do again.
While Yaymaker says organizations will eventually host in-person events again, virtual events are something they’d like to continue as well.
“We’re able to reach a wider audience,” says Prentice. “There’s lots of areas that we don’t do, and so with this more people are able to access our events.”
Nippard says a painting event is something she’d like to do again, but she’d also like to see the events expanded, once social distancing is more relaxed.
“I would love to see more offerings where children can take part; there’s only a select few from what I’ve seen,” she says. “I’d like to see them available for birthday parties; I think children would really like that and it’s something they can take away with them, as opposed to a bag of candy.”