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Participants at the December Happy Hour Painting event sip wine and paint snowmen. (Provided via Lyn Stanton)

Happy Hour Painting sessions offer a creative outlet in a fun social atmosphere

The Dairy Barn Arts Center will continue its Happy Hour Painting sessions this Thursday, where participants can sip wine and channel their artistic side with friends.

The Dairy Barn has hosted group painting sessions every third Thursday for more than a year now. Each session draws from a different theme or famous painting to inspire participants. At Thursday’s event titled “You Could be Swinging on a Winter Breeze,” painters will create colorful backgrounds and a silhouette of a tree and swing.

Lyn Stanton, education director for the Dairy Barn, instructs the events but tries to take a hands-off approach to teaching.

“There’s only as much instruction as is requested,” she said. “I really want the experience to be uninhibited and relaxed for people. I think too much instruction can inhibit that experience.”

Admission to the event is $25 which covers all artistic supplies. While participants channel their inner Picasso, they can sip on wine or other beverages purchased at the Dairy Barn for an additional cost. Because the Dairy Barn has a liquor license, participants cannot bring their own drinks to the event.

Stanton said although she chooses not to give much instruction, painters need little experience to produce a nice work of art.

“I think there’s a great demand right now in popular culture for doing something,” she said. “I think people don’t just want to go and look at or hear something, they want to create something.”

John Sabraw, a professor of art and chair of painting and drawing, said combining art with a fun social atmosphere is one good way for people to get involved in something creative.

“I think pretty much anything that brings more people to art is a good thing,” he said in an email. “Personally, I can't imagine daily life without color and paint so giving that gift to people who don't have it is a bonus.”

Sabraw said another way to get involved artistically is to go to local art shows and meet the artists themselves.

Shannon Whiteman attended the Happy Hour Painting event in December and plans to attend this month’s as well. She said she and her friends decided to go after seeing pictures of similar events online.

“It was really fun to do because it was something that I had never done,” she said. “We were hoping for hands-on instructions but it was nice of (Stanton) to just let us decide what wanted to do. It actually turned out really good.”

Whiteman said she enjoyed painting so much that she decided to take it up as a hobby at home in addition to the Dairy Barn’s gatherings.

“I didn’t realize I could do what I did,” she said.

@adeichelberger

ae595714@ohio.edu

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