Paint and sip events became one of the most-booked weekend activities of the last decade for a reason. They are creative, social, lightly competitive, and they end with everyone holding a painting they made themselves.
But you don't need to book a studio or pay $50 a head to host one. A paint and sip picnic at home — in your garden, your living room or at a local park — is genuinely better than the studio version. It costs less, runs at your pace, and the food and drinks are exactly what your guests want.
Here is the complete step-by-step guide to hosting one well.
Step 1: Decide on the Setup — Indoor or Outdoor
Outdoor (picnic style). Best in spring, summer or early autumn. Pick a flat grass area in a park, garden or rooftop. Bring blankets, low tables or upturned crates as easel surfaces, and weight everything down — there is nothing worse than chasing a half-painted canvas across a lawn.
Indoor. Better for winter or evenings. Use a long dining table or coffee table on a picnic rug for atmosphere. Cover the table with brown craft paper or an old sheet — paint will land somewhere.
Step 2: Pick Your Painting Style
You have three options, ordered from easiest to hardest:
Paint by numbers kits (recommended). Each guest gets a numbered canvas with matched paints. Everyone finishes a painting. No one feels artistically intimidated. This is by far the highest success rate.
Same scene, free-painted. Provide a single reference image (a sunset, a wine bottle, a vase of flowers) and let people interpret it. Fun but stressful for guests who can't draw.
Wild card. Everyone paints whatever they want. Only works if your friends are confident artists. Most are not.
For a first paint and sip, go with paint-by-numbers kits. The whole event flows better.
Step 3: The Supplies List
For 4–6 guests:
- One small canvas per person (20×25cm is perfect — bigger gets tiring)
- Acrylic paints (or paint pots from the PBN kits)
- Brushes (one fine, one medium per person)
- A small water cup per person
- Paper towels (lots more than you think)
- A simple palette per person (paper plates work)
- A picnic blanket and table covering
- Drinks, charcuterie, and one easy main
Step 4: Food and Drinks That Work
Paint and sip food needs to be one-handed. Once people are committed to a section of canvas, they will not put down the brush for cutlery.
Best foods: Charcuterie board, cheese and crackers, grapes, olives, sliced cucumber, mini quiches, dolmades, dips with cut vegetables.
Best drinks: A light sparkling wine, rosé, or — if it's an afternoon — Aperol spritz. For non-drinkers, sparkling water with citrus and rosemary feels like an event drink without alcohol.
Avoid anything that requires concentration to eat. No spaghetti, no whole sandwiches, nothing dripping. The paint and the food share the table — keep both manageable.
Step 5: The Timing
A good paint and sip picnic runs about 2.5 hours total. The natural rhythm is:
0:00–0:20 Arrival, drinks, setup. Everyone unwraps their kit and gets a glass.
0:20–0:35 First section together. Demo the technique once. Help anyone struggling.
0:35–1:30 Quiet painting. This is the magic part. People stop talking quite as much. The wine slows down. Music plays softly. This is the hour everyone will remember.
1:30–2:00 Painting resumes alongside snacking. Conversation picks back up. Some people finish.
2:00–2:30 Wrap-up. Group photo of paintings. Plenty of compliments. Everyone takes their canvas home.
Step 6: The Music
This matters more than people realise. A noisy playlist breaks the focus. Total silence feels awkward.
Aim for instrumental or low-vocal background music — bossa nova, acoustic, lo-fi, vintage jazz, soft Italian café music. Spotify has dozens of playlists called something like 'Sunday Morning' that fit perfectly.
Keep the volume low enough that conversation rises above it naturally.
Step 7: The Small Details That Make It Feel Like an Event
Personalised place settings. Write each guest's name on their canvas in pencil before they arrive.
Aprons. Cheap aprons feel theatrical and prevent guests stressing about clothes.
A little welcome drink waiting. Pre-poured glasses on arrival immediately set the tone.
Group photo at the end. Everyone holding their canvas, smiling. This is the photo that ends up on everyone's phone wallpaper for two weeks.
The Easy Version: Use a Pre-Built Picnic Experience
If you'd rather not gather all the supplies yourself, our Picnic Experience is built exactly for this — a curated paint-and-sip picnic kit you can run for friends, hens parties, birthdays or date nights. Everything is in one box: canvases, paints, brushes, accessories. You bring the drinks and the people.
A paint and sip picnic is one of those rare events that delivers genuinely more than it asks. A few hours of low-stakes creativity, real conversation, decent food, soft music — and at the end of it, everyone walks away with a painting they actually made.
Whether you assemble it yourself with a few kits and a charcuterie board, or you grab a Picnic Experience and skip the shopping list, the rest happens almost on its own.
— Be Artistic Club