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Pune’s brush with paint parties
An interesting and feasible concept, paint parties are slowly and steadily becoming popular in the art circuits
While weekends call for parties and celebrations, Puneites have found a new way to relax and de-stress. A new trend of paint parties has come around the city. With cafes and restaurants encouraging the trend, we speak to artists on what they have to say about the fad.
With the increasing inclination towards art among millennial today, paint parties provide an opportunity to enhance interface with customers while encouraging them to bond with like-minded people in the offline space. Loft, Vimannagar, has a bustling weekend these days as it along with The Drawing Room has held a few paint parties in the city.
The café thrives to manifest the ideology of “Food with a side of Fun” with such engaging workshops like mandala painting, palate knife painting, charcoal sketching, sparkle painting and others. While paint parties are preferred among people to disconnect and de-stress, it also lets them express their moods, thoughts and emotions in the most satiating manner. It is for this purpose that the paint parties at Loft are usually a full house on weekends. The Drawing Room, along with Loft, curates unique and exciting themes and formats every weekend and the footfall justifies the same.
Artist Sussana Joseph, shares, “Teens and adults spend time which makes it more exciting for us to host paint parties/workshops. Participants initially get slightly stressed thinking if they will be able to paint, but at the end of every session they leave the cafe smiling to have created their very own masterpiece.”
The trend
Artists believe in a fabulous concept and organisers could work on different segments of the kind of people who attend these parties. Madhuri Bhaduri, artist, says, “Primarily it is a great activity along with some fun and could benefit from a therapeutic aspect of spending time in a more creatively way to bond over the subject of art which exposes you to the most sensitive areas of your existence.”
Artist Gayatri Tambes-Deshpande states painting parties are enjoyable. She adds that they make the joy of art accessible to people who are looking to de-stress. “It is a great way to unwind and it’s also a good introduction to art where people can choose whether to pursue it seriously or take it as a hobby.”
Artist Mukta Kamplikar says, “I love this new way of thinking about art itself. I believe painting is much so more than lines and colours. To me both painting and party are super attractive as an artist and an art lover. Painting parties are about freedom and freedom to express is important to me.”
In promotion of art
When it comes to learning how to promote your art, one of the main skills to master is networking. Artist Sandeep Sinha says, “Organising your own “paint parties” is a wonderful way to learn the art marketing ropes. Consider making it a group show. More artists means more art marketing for the show. Each artist will be able to put the word out to their networks of friends and fans, increasing the reach of your artist promotion.”
Madhuri adds that art parties are a great way of getting people more inclined towards art by bringing conversations around it, exposing your thoughts in that direction and exchanging ideas also brings about an overall awareness.
To change and improve
Paint parties could involve different segments of society where you have various combinations of groups involving different age groups coming together which could be a parent-child, a husband-wife, older people, teenagers. Madhuri says, “We can play around with different materials of art and you could also work on a module where a person who is not connected with art comes together with somebody who is connected with it like a corporate entity, also have an artist on board who guides through the process of creating. Each time the theme of the party can be different including the venues, the flavour of food, the music where you can have some live performances which gives it a unique feel and makes it more thematic as people always look forward to different flavours of excitement and it helps creating more interest and curiosity.”
Sandeep says, “Discussing social issues in everyday life helps create awareness, and better understanding of problems regarding their exact nature and causes, etc. Women’s issues have been one of the most misunderstood, under-represented, and is rife with misguided notions of what women need help with to achieve real equality. More people talk and paint about them will raise the popularity of the issues, which leads to increase in momentum, which is required to cause any sort of social change
Suggestions by artists
• One could use a paint party to teach – art appreciation or teach them to paint
• One could think out of the box and invite folks and utilise a paint party to colour workplace/ bar
• One could have corporate team building events through paint parties
• One could use paint parties for building relationships
• Theme-based paint parties could be utilised for like-minded people to explore areas like – sensitivity/ emotional intelligence etc.
