by Ashley
Remember the last time I talked about a Yelp event? It was in November and husband and I attended a fancy-pants charity event (for free, courtesy of Yelp) and called it our anniversary date.
Side note about Yelp: I’m a Yelp Elite member. This basically means I use yelp a lot (they measure your # of reviews, log-ins, likes, picture uploads, etc.). If you are an Elite member you get invited to all kinds of free yelp events – they have at least one or two per month. It’s hard for me to go because you have to RSVP pretty far in advance, but then you aren’t notified if you’re “on the list” or not until 2 days before the event. This often precludes me from being able to go since I generally have to line up childcare farther in advance than that. But if you don’t have kids and/or your kids are older or you have a last-minute sitter… Yelp events are where it’s at. Lots of fun for free! They spoil us! All you have to do to become elite is join yelp (for free) and start becoming active on the website! Note, this is not a sponsored post in any way, just wanted to explain how I get to do these things for free.
Anyway…..
Have you guys seen these painting classes popping up all over the country? I’ve been wanting to try one for months! Seriously! When I was in Austin over Christmas I was begging my sister to go to one with me, but we just didn’t have enough time to make it work out. I am SO glad that I held out because here we are in March, only a mere 3 months after Christmas time, and I got to do one of the painting classes FOR FREE!!! Score!!!
Typically these classes run about $40/class. They supply a canvas, paints, brushes, related supplies (like aprons, easel), and you show up ready to have a good time!
Since this was a Yelp Elite event, we also had food catered. We enjoyed all kinds of stuff from Rene’s Organic Kitchen (a delicious eatery in Tucson) + drink tickets for drinks. This event also allowed a +1 on the RSVP, so I decided to bring a girlfriend. It meant I got some girl chat time, plus didn’t have to pay a ‘sitter since hubs could stay home with the kiddos.
And…..we had a blast! Here’s what we made. It’s called “Saguaro desert”
An artist, I am not. But I still think I did a pretty decent job. I mean, I’m impressed with how it came out considering my lack of artistic ability.
So here’s my review of the art class in case you have any in your area and have been debating about going….
I had a great time. They did a fabulous job of walking us step-by-step through the painting process so we all came away with a work of art that actually looks pretty impressive! For real, hubs actually hung it on our wall.
One negative side of all the instruction is that there’s barely a break for simple chit chat amongst friends. We really had to be paying attention to get all the steps right. I would have liked it if were a little more laid back with more chances for talking with our friends during the class (not just before/after class). That could be a function of our specific painting (maybe some are easier or have fewer steps?), or maybe just our instructor’s style. The painting took about 60 minutes to complete in total.
Another negative is just the cost! $40 is kind of a lot for a night out if it doesn’t even include any food/beverage (again, we got food/drink since this was a Yelp event, but with typical events you have to pay for the extras).
Do I think it’s worth it? Would I go again?
Well, I would….but it’d have to be a special occasion. This type of event is “too rich for my blood” if its just a simple girls’ night out. But if it were a special occasion (e.g., sister’s birthday, christmas present), I might spring for the cost. It also depends on the place. I know the painting places in Austin are BYOB, which would be significantly cheaper than the studio in Tucson where the prices were $5/beverage (wine or beer).
So lots of “it depends” type responses. In the end, I’m really glad I was able to do this as its something I’d been eyeing for quite awhile. But I’m glad I got to do it for FREE! The bottom line matters these days, and you can’t beat a bottom line of $0!
Have you ever done one of these painting classes? How much did you spend and did you think it was worth the cost?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I haven’t done one personally. I have a cousin that teaches the class. Also my Mary Kay Sales Director teaches a class. My sister has gone to the class. It just isn’t something that I want to spend money on.
I’ve done a bunch of these now – they’re great! Each instructor definitely has their own style, and some are more laid back than others. I prefer the ones where the instructor is giving detailed steps though – since I’m NOT an artist and need all the help I can get 🙂
1 hour is really short though – the events I’ve been to are all 2.5 to 3 hours long – so that probably explains why yours felt super-focused.
I find $40 too spendy – but there is ALWAYS a groupon or livingsocial deal, and the company that I’ve been going to offers codes all the time – so I’ve been paying $25 per event.
Oh, I’ve never looked through Groupon to find these, but at $20 I’d be a lot more comfortable with the price tag! Our class was actually about 2-2.5 hours, but there were a lot of late stragglers, and time to get food/talk before it started (and again after it ended). The actual instruction was only about 60 minutes. So maybe if they’d spaced out the instruction to allow for some chit chat WHILE we were painting it would have felt a bit more relaxed. I do think the food element threw them a bit since people were also having dinner before the class began (which takes some time, obviously)
I did one with a group of friends a few months ago. We got Groupons so the cost was $20 and it started at 3:30 in the afternoon. We went to dinner afterwards (some went home to relieve their husband from baby night time duty). I think everyone got one drink from the bar, so about $7 each. We talked the WHOLE time. They were pretty understanding and had a second guy looping around to repeat instructions we missed. What I didn’t realize until later was that they are rated easy, medium and hard. Ours was a medium level one with three snowmen. I think I would go for the easy level if I were to do it again. The chitchat is most of the fun! I think a laidback attitude helped – like when I painted the background the wrong color because I was talking too much – everyone laughed and then the instructor helped me fix it. And I didn’t go in expecting much!
I had no idea there were different rating levels! This makes me curious to figure out what our painting was rated! $20 is a much more reasonable cost – something I’d feel a lot more comfortable spending!
If you brought a friend for the $40 fee then you really did get the class for $20! I think you did a great job for an hour of instruction.
Oh, this event was free for me and a +1 so both my friend and I got to go free. I was just saying that it’s typically a $40 class