Have A Fun Night Painting Your Pet With Paint Monkey

Achievement: #13. Paint Your Pet @ Paint Monkey

In our humble opinions, wine & creativity kind of just… go together. You know, like meat and potatoes. Or vodka and orange juice. Or, say, Laverne & Shirley. And luckily for us in Pittsburgh, there is an awesome venue that *also* realizes this and lets you go to town: Paint Monkey.

We first got to check out Paint Monkey last year at a Yelp event shortly after they opened. The deal at Paint Monkey is this: you sign up for a class, bring your own booze and snacks, then show up and paint. Your canvas will be outlined with the painting du jour, you’ll get a palette of colors to choose from, and you’ll have instruction and assistance from the pros as needed.

Paint Your Pet
One of the most coveted classes to get tickets for is Paint Your Pet night.

A week or so before the class, you email in a picture of your pet. It can be any pet at all, although the night we went, it was all dogs.

Paint Your Pet
I chose the picture of Piper on the left, and Michael painted the picture of Lucy on the right.

Paint Your Pet
We found some appropriate wine for the event, and we were ready to paint!

Paint Your Pet
Here’s the sketch of Piper to start with.

Paint Your Pet
And the sketch of Lucy. I was so impressed at how they captured both of the girls’ expressions so well!

Paint Your Pet
The first step was to choose a background color and fill that in. I gave the painting of Piper to my parents, who have a green living room, so this is what I chose.

Paint Your Pet
We are planning to hang Lucy’s painting in the living room, so Michael chose a nice blue to match our walls.

Paint Your Pet
Next, we started filling in the darker colors. Since Piper is an Elderbeast, I had a lot of different shading to work with. Our instructor showed me how to make the different shades of grey for the different parts of her fur.

Paint Your Pet
And don’t be intimidated by having to paint the difficult parts, like the eyes! You’ll get plenty of help to make sure they are just how you want them!

All the while you are painting, there are some great tunes playing on random. Old school Janet Jackson, Prince, stuff from the 70s, you name it. Great atmosphere!

Paint Your Pet
Took a bit of time, but Michael really nailed the red shade of Lucy’s fur!

Paint Your Pet
One of the toughest parts of painting Piper’s picture was the detail on her birthday hat. (The picture was from her 11th birthday party 2 years ago.) But the little imperfections are what make the paintings so unique. You just have to go with it and embrace your inner artist!

Paint Your Pet
As everyone was finishing up, we all started chatting and looking at each others’ paintings. I loved talking dogs with everyone!

Paint Your Pet
Once your painting is complete, you take it to the front to get your picture taken with it in the frame.

Paint Your Pet
This gives everyone another chance to see the other paintings from the night. So much fun!

After we got home, we just *had* to have the girls get their pictures taken with their paintings!

Paint Your Pet
Miss Piper is not very good at sitting still (or being ladylike) in photos, but eventually, I got the shot!

Paint Your Pet
Miss Lucy, on the other hand, is an old pro at posing for photos. She was so proud to be fame-us in a painting!

Paint Monkey is a blast for any event, but the personal importance of Paint Your Pet night puts it on a different level. We absolutely recommend that you check it out, but sign up as early as you can – the spots will go quickly! You can click here to see the list of available classes and register for the one that suits your fancy at their calendar.

2 Comments

Filed under #13, #13-14, art, lawrenceville, lucy, pets, wine

2 Responses to Have A Fun Night Painting Your Pet With Paint Monkey

  1. Woubbie

    *shudders with relief*

    Oh Thank Jeebus! I thought you were actually going to Paint Your Dog.