Painting Party

As adults, opportunities for parallel play are few and far between.

Young people experience this as a developmental stage—think toddlers playing or engaging in activities side by side in the same physical space without directly interacting or trying to influence one another. Parents out there will relate to the sense of magic the first time you see your kid doing this: contented by having someone close, expansive by having the freedom to explore and experiment on their own terms.

But the activity, marked by shared space but separate experiences, becomes increasingly rare as we get older. For a whole lot of adult humans, hanging out involves hosting and dinner parties; it’s small talk, and also cherished moments spent catching up with friends you get time with after no longer getting to be geographically close. It’s going to a show together, or working on a project together with someone who could use some help. So much of this is also valuable—but the fact remains that it’s increasingly unlikely that you go to your friend’s house after you’re fully grown and work on your laptop or fix a rip in a sweater while they cook (but just reading that, if you’ve gotten to do it lately we bet it felt pretty wonderful).

We spend a lot of time talking about how nice it is to just be around people without the pressure of entertaining or making conversation—both of which we also love! Which is why a core tenet at Better Farm is the very conscious, curated function of re-incorporating parallel play into our daily lives. Better Radio hosts do this almost instinctively, with one person spinning records while some folks chat and others work on a project (most often organizing records, watching for shooting stars, tending a fire, or doing arts ‘n’ crafts). We incorporate play into every retreat—from our sustainability education program to artist residencies—and strive to keep the momentum going even when peak season ends and things grow quiet. The “regulars” here will vouch for alllll the parallel play projects we do here, though some might not consider certain things, like frantically building out parade floats for Redwood Field Days, “play.”

So when the folks at Davincified, purveyors of paint-by-numbers kits designed to help adults and beginners create canvas art through a guided numbering system, reached out about sending us some kits to try out, we were all in.

We opted for the Mexican Folk Art - Mini Paint by Numbers Set, which retails for $54.90 (we felt the canvases would make a perfect addition to the Frida Loft!).

The canvases are just 6" x 8" and come with some brushes in different sizes, a color guide, and a paint set with tiny, flip-top containers with numbered stickers to match the various canvases.

We invited some friends over to get in on the fun, which offered the parallel play experience but also meant negotiating who was using which color as what time, as each canvas didn’t have its own, designated group of paints to use. Passing the paints around worked, and we had enough to go around.

What We Loved

These paintings truly came out beautifully, and they were very fun to create. There was MUCH silence in the room as this otherwise loquacious group became hyper-fixated on the task at hand.

The colors are beautiful, and the paint felt high-quality: not too watery, vibrant colors, and definitely pieces we’re excited to display.

This was also a nice departure from paint ‘n’ sips—which we love, and have hosted in spades—where you’re locked into a single image. It was fun to pick which canvas to tackle, and entertaining to see how each developed.

And while some paints got used entirely, the portions were even throughout. That allowed one of our friends to swap the white background for …BLACK, which actually really elevated the work. SHOW-STOPPER:

Our Radical Feedback

It likely goes without saying, but the mini paint set had some TINY circles to paint with brushes that didn’t always seem to behave. The best we could do was throw on some cheaters, identify the number, track down the color, and make a dot—certainly not a brushstroke!

The numbered stickers on paint vessels also lacked a way to tell the difference between 6 and 9, which we did manage to figure out (HA) and the sheer volume of paints for six paintings required some rooting around to land on what you needed. A couple of paints, we concluded, were not numbered correctly—but do take that consensus with a grain of salt.

Lastly, and because we were operating as a group with a kit that’s really set up with supplies for one person, we increasingly found ourselves seeking out the tiniest brush. Less of an issue for the crew here, since we have art supplies galore, but we didn’t go into it anticipating a need for our own supplies. Memo to Davincified: Assume adults will want to do this project with friends.

Overall, this was such great way to practice parallel play—and with lovely finished products to boot. HIGHLY recommend—you can pick your own set here, or just set an intention with whatever you’ve got at home. It’s an invitation to call some friends over to play and be enchanted by the silly exhilaration of hanging without performing.