Adults-Only Turned Cutesy: The Paint & Sip

Have you ever heard of such a thing before?  If you haven’t, a paint and sip, also sometimes called ‘sip and paint,’ is an event in which attendees are taught how to recreate a specific painting or work of art while drinking alcoholic beverages — usually wine. Pitt-Greensburg club Psych State of Mind just recently held one this past Monday, Feb. 12, in Room 118 at Village Hall. 

Psych State of Mind is an amalgamation of Psi Chi, the campus’ psychology honors society, and a more casual psychology-centered club.

The club president, Lindsey Lauffer, said, “Anyone can be in the psych club, but you obviously need to be inducted to be in Psi Chi — with a 3.0 GPA or higher.”

Despite her presidency, Lauffer wished to stress the notion that the idea for the paint and sip was not hers. It was, in fact, the club secretary Gia Cartia’s idea.

“We were talking about different ways we could do fundraising for the club this semester, and Gia actually does paint and sips for a lot of different places and thought it would be a cool idea, and we all agreed since art therapy is really good for mental health,” Lauffer said.

Club PR, Nichole Weinman, also had a great amount of input in spreading the news about the event. Weinman handles the club’s status on social media and is in charge of publicizing the events to ensure that all of the students know about them.

Lauffer did want to make her contribution known, however, as she is actively a bartender by trade.

“I’m a bartender so I get to mix up all of the mocktails for the people to drink while they paint,” she said.

The idea for mocktails came about since Lauffer and the club executives immediately knew of the possibility that underaged students would be attending the event. As such, mocktails provide a fun way to enjoy a beverage while engaging in the painting lessons — which is a staple of paint and sip events.

“The mocktails also have really cutesy names, too, for Valentine’s Day, so there’s ones like the ‘Cupid’ and the ‘Saint Valentine,’ which really adds to the fun,” Lauffer said. 

Of course, the other major component of the paint and sip is the painting itself. The attendees of the event got the privilege to be provided with their own easel, canvas, paints and brushes to partake in recreating a pre-chosen piece of art.  

“Gia is the one who teaches the students about the techniques with painting and she was also the one who chose the painting they would be copying,” Lauffer said.

There is some level of difficulty in properly obtaining the painting supplies though.

The club faculty advisor, Dr. Kristen Asplin, said, “It takes at least a full week to get all the easels, the canvases and set the whole thing up. It’s just a very lengthy process. I think it’s definitely going to be fun, though.”

Unfortunately, the event has now since passed — having taken place this past Monday, Feb. 12. For those interested in any other events that Psych State of Mind will be doing this semester, Dr. Asplin mentioned that the club will also be hosting movie-showings as well.

“Dr. Vallano is also hosting a lecture on forensic psychology and I’m pretty excited about that,” she said.
If you have any questions for President Lauffer, you can email her at lll59@pitt.edu. Dr. Asplin is also available at kna4@pitt.edu, and her office hours are on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 1-2 p.m.