The Art of Merlot- Becoming Van Gogh Date

We’d once again like to take a moment and give thanks to Groupon for giving us an idea for a date we never would have thought of, and may have never done without the nice discount. We both agreed, this goes in our TOP 3 DATES EVER! It really was that amazing!

 We went to a shop in Downtown Scottsdale called The Art of Merlot.

The concept is really cool, you sign up for a class to re-create your own version of a famous painting, bring a bottle of wine and some snacks, and have a fun night learning to paint, expressing your creativity, and enjoying whatever refreshment you bring. Since I have a slightly scary obsession with Van Gogh paintings (remember this date?), we decided this would be a good choice for our first painting. Little did we know Starry Night happens to be one of the hardest paintings to recreate and to do in only 3 hours, but hey, we are ambitious people here!

We went to Silvermine Subs in Scottsdale. The last time we went we had one amazing date, the Tandem Bike Adventure. Maybe we’ll have to hit up Silvermine more often since it is 2-for-2 on awesome dates! They really do have good subs too!

We aren’t drinkers, but we improvised and brought our own fancy beverage to enjoy in wine glasses. As always, thank you Trader Joe’s for never disappointing!

We ate our subs quickly because they didn’t waste time with this class! After that we were given our canvas, a template to trace, and some carbon paper. A loose outline of the painting is made so that you can have correct proportions and follow it as a guide while painting.

Then we were instructed how to blend paint, what sections to start with, and given some creative license to follow or modify however we wanted. This is where the instruction helps, but everyone blends a little differently and comes out with different shades, brush strokes, and areas of emphasis. Of course stopping to take a drink and eat snacks was encouraged. However, most people were really intense- we were too! Trying to recreate the most amazing artist’s most famous painting takes some concentration! But it really was a blast to try and do.

Everyone seemed to be perfectionists and critiqued their paintings, but when we stood back and looked they really all looked great even if different. It was really fun to see how the group’s paintings ended up when we took our group shot.

It was also fun to see what we viewed as important in our own paintings and spent time doing. Jacob clearly went for the tree, I really cared about the swirls in the sky.

We both commented how we couldn’t get over the amount of fun we had on this date and how it was so out of our normal routines that it made for THE perfect date! We loved it so much we found a Groupon competitor’s coupon the next week and purchased it. Watch out, we’ll be repeating and posting the repeat in the next two months! But seriously, find an art studio or “art bar” near you and get on this date!