Beer Meets Canvas classes encourage creativity

PALMER — June Gerteisen has been teaching the Beer Meets Canvas classes at Arkose Brewery in Palmer for five years – longer than the “Paint and Sip” trend has been around.

Gerteisen, who has a BFA in fine art and a master’s in art therapy, said Beer Meets Canvas is different from what people have become accustomed to at the popular events.

“The main difference between this and the Paint and Sip industry as a whole, which is everyone paints the same thing and the instructor helps you along – ‘Let’s all paint the background, now let’s all paint the foreground’ – is this takes it a step further. Because I want everyone to explore their own creativity. Each one of us has that innately in all of us.”

Participants in the monthly classes are given a theme from a featured famous artist to be inspired by, so the classes act as part art history and art appreciation, part painting class. This month, the featured artist was Jim Dyne, an American pop artist who did a series of paintings of hearts.

But folks in the class can paint anything they’d like, and don’t have to stick to the month’s theme, Gerteisen said.

She does provide some basic instruction. She explains how to use a palette knife to mix colors on the palette paper. She suggests painting in layers, starting with what’s in the background and layering the mid and fore-ground pieces over it. She talks a little bit about color.

But she doesn’t tell people what to do. It’s much more about process, she said.

“They like that freedom to create,” she said. “They have a safe place here that’s comfortable. They don’t have to clean up afterwards, they don’t have to get supplies together. It’s ready for them. The motto is, ‘Sip, relax, create.’ It’s a fun thing, it’s social.”

As the Feb. 11 class filed in, they sorted materials and talked about what they wanted to paint.

Beth and Paul Laird, a couple from Eagle River, said they had been meaning to take the class for a while now, and that they don’t have any painting experience.

A number of people who came said they wanted to paint their pets.

“I have no artistic talent,” another participant warned Beth Laird.

“Good, you have more than me, then,” was Laird’s rejoinder.

Gerteisen said it’s all for fun and releasing your inner creativity, but that she’s often been surprised by the work created by people who say they’ve never painted before.

“It’s more about the process and the joy of creating,” she said. “But people who say, ‘Oh, I’ve never painted,’ and then look at that and they discover something about themselves.”

Arkose Brewery hosts the Beer Meet Canvas classes every second Saturday of the month. Classes are $40 per person, and include one beer and all required art supplies. Limited to people ages 21 and over. For more information, call 907-746-2337.