Express yourself at Paint Nite

Attending too many Greek date functions or wasting food points at the Washington Duke Inn can get stale after a few years, so we ventured into Durham for a fresh night out.

We entered the top loft of the West End Wine Bar on Main Street to find smocks, brushes and individual canvases scattered among the alcoholic beverages. The painters were an eclectic mix of dating 20-somethings, mother-and-daughter pairs or groups of friends looking for a way to spice up their Tuesday summer nights.

Created as a way to draw the 21-and-older crowd to local pubs, Paint Nite “makes art accessible to people who don’t consider themselves artists or creative in any way,” according to the company’s website. We hadn't painted since high school, so this was a test of how much those skills had deteriorated. For convenience, we picked an event in downtown Durham, but Paint Nite hosts events in bars throughout the Triangle Area during slower weeknights.

For many, it was their first time painting. But Krystal Kerns, a local artist and our teacher for the night, eased many of our fears by providing step-by-step instruction for creating our own sunset scenes.

“I created all of [the example] paintings with my Paint Nite classes in mind, because I’m going to be teaching people who have never painted before,” Kerns said. “It’s something that comes easy to me because I’ve done it for so long, so I have to think outside of the box a little bit, take really good paintings and simplify them.”

Kerns led the group with two canvases: one completed sunset to model the collective goal, and a blank one on which she recreated the sunset. She patiently explained her process of blending colors, utilizing different brush strokes and how to get the most out of combinations of black, blue, red, white and yellow—the seemingly limited palette available to us.

As the evening progressed, so did the mishaps. An amateur brush stroke resulted in a stain on Sharif’s pants. Ashley’s attempts at palm trees looked more like shish kebabs. Across from us, our fellow painters were having some of their own problems.

“Your painting is looking good, mine is jacked up,” the woman across from me told her friend. “Oh man, I just jacked my sun up!”

In between various stages of the painting, Kerns walked about the room and gave us suggestions on how to “un-jack” our paintings when necessary.

Though the booze provided an initial lure to the experience, after the first hour the participants became so engrossed in their paintings that most ignored the bartender's invitations for more drinks.

As the night dwindled down and our canvases began to look like masterpieces, Kerns gave us a chance to move about the room and check out everybody else’s paintings. No two pictures were alike. Some painters added starry scenes or tiny birds, while others frantically added more paint to cover up small mistakes.

“My favorite part is definitely the end when everyone is done,” Kerns said. “Then you get to see how everybody actually did put their own little input into everything and no two pictures look alike. That’s really the most fun of it all because when you’re done and you’re looking around from your seat at what everybody else has done, it’s a really cool experience to be a part of—you all collectively created something different.”

Despite the group's general lack of painting experience, the inevitable mistakes and the constant feeling that we were about to damage our work irreparably, no one walked away from the experience without a smile. Somehow, we managed to create two decently executed tropical sunsets to display side-by-side on an apartment wall. Now it's up to guests to figure out who painted which.

“I would love to be able to paint something by myself but I can’t, so [Paint Nite] allows me to have some guidance while I created it,” said Nancy Williams, another Paint Nite patron. “[I loved] hearing people go ‘this is awful, this is awful,’ and then their finished product looks awesome.”

Paint Nite tosses some spice into Durham's social scene. If you need something new in your life, grab a brush and a beer and see what you can make.