Zos Chanukah Family Fun: Make a Paint Night Party

By Yehudit Garmaise

While our menorahs blaze with the holy flames of all the candles tonight, families can celebrate the miraculous energy of Zos Chanukah with a fun and relaxing Paint Night.

Before painters sit down to let their creative juices flow, families should gather the following materials for participants: a variety of colors of acrylic paints, several different sizes of paintbrushes, canvases, paper plates, mason jars, or cups for water to clean paint brushes, pencils, and paper towels.

For inspiration as to what to paint, participants can look through their camera rolls, magazines, and family photos, or find beautiful scenes elsewhere.

Put down a plastic tablecloth over the table you are using to protect it, and then set up each painter's place with the materials needed to have fun painting.

Instead of trying to recreate inspirational photos exactly as they look, painters should use their chosen photos as starting points and trust their own perceptions to decide what shapes, lines, and colors they will use to express the ideas that inspired them.

Using pencils, painters can start by sketching their paintings' basic shapes onto their canvases.

Painters should squeeze a coin-size amount of each color of paint they want to use onto their paper plate.

Any color can be made lighter by adding white or darker by adding gray or black.

Dip the brush in clean water between colors, and then dry the brush on a folded paper towel.

Participants should try to fill up their entire canvases with paint and let their creations dry overnight before touching them.

In the morning, hang the paintings on the wall to remember the fun and display everyone's unique talents!