Pub & Paint: Join the madness in Baltimore
So the thing that I did last night really needs to happen in the UK. I’m sure it is in London but when I Googled my home town in England to see if this thing happens there, it does not. I will make this thing happen because it’s awesome!
The thing is Pub & Paint! And it’s such fun. And they’re based in Baltimore. It’s taking this bit of America by storm at the moment – everyone’s at it. In fact, as I walked back to my car last night after pubbing and painting there was another group of folks walking out of somewhere else and clutching their completed canvases in their hands with joy and glee and wine in their souls.
The concept is this: You drink in a pub whilst being instructed how to paint. Simples! We were instructed by the patient folk of Pub & Paint, hosted in Portalli’s in Ellicott City.
We were to paint wine glasses, though I think at one point my friend Andrew misinterpreted this as ‘dead mammals’. His started as a bit of a train wreck, but it’s actually now hanging on the wall in Portalli’s, so all credit to him for managing to pull it off despite the copious amounts of Chardonnay he was knocking back.
The crew on hand are excellent at instructing you how to follow the lines, where to start, where to finish, how to mix paints, which brushes to use and how to create different looks. I was a bit concerned about not being able to follow directions all that well, but I rather took to it like a duck to water and began to get competitive with myself, seeing if I could create light, reflection, bubbles etc to get a truly authentic picture. I think I did rather well! 🙂
You can find where to Pub and Paint in Baltimore and surrounding areas via the website and Facebook page.
Depending on how much you pubbed, the memory of actually painting might be a bit fuzzy, but most of us woke up today with a friendly reminder hanging on our wall.
Claire Bolden McGill is a British expat who lived in Maryland for three years and moved back to the UK in August 2015. Claire wrote about her life as a British expat on the East Coast and now works in travel and hospitality PR in the UK. She still finds time to blog about her repatriation and the reverse culture shock that ensued – and she still hasn’t finished that novel, but she’s working on it. You can contact Claire via twitter on @clairebmcgill or via her blog From America to England.