August 28, 2013: Artistic Expressions!

The day after my bout with what I suspect was food poisoning, my breakfast and lunch consisted of two hardboiled eggs, a bowl of chicken stock, and a bottle of ginger beer.  So, when dinner rolled around, my appetite was back.  And good thing too since we had reservations at Raw Canvas, a unique, art-themed restaurant in Vancouver’s Yaletown.  Akemi had been eager to check the place out since seeing it featured on Food Network.

The menu consists of charcuterie items (meats, cheeses, nuts and dried fruit) but the big draw isn’t the food, it’s, well, the draw.  Or the painting to be more precise. You take a seat at your table, have your meal, then pick your canvas (priced by size) and head on over to the painting area where you can give free rein to your artistic expressions.

Akemi, rarin’ to go!

We sat down at the table and I ordered some terrine, sausage, cheese, dried figs, and mustard.  Akemi wasn’t hungry.  Food was the farthest thing from her mind. Sensing her eagerness, the waitress suggested we could head down and start painting.  She would bring us our food when it was ready.  Well, that’s all Akemi needed to hear.  She was off!  I grabbed our bottle of San Pellegrino and tried to keep up.

Down in what I’ll refer to as “the painting pit”, we selected our canvases after which our waitress ran us through everything we needed to know: paintbrushes here, paint there, water around here…  Akemi was practically jumping up and down in place.  ”Looking forward to this?”asked our waitress.  ”Some more than others,”I conceded.”

Our evening of pictures in pictures…

Akemi chooses her paints.  You squeeze them out of the dispensers like you’re milking a cow except that, instead of milk, you get burnt umber and T1000 Terminator silver.

While Akemi immediately got to work on her masterpiece, I focused my attention on dinner.  I would have ordered another round but our waitress never returned to the pit.

Akemi makes like a professional, focused on the task at hand.  First, the waves.

Then, the sun.  Unlike me who just used the paint colors offered, she mixed the various paints on her palette to create variations.

She actually came prepared with a sketch of what she wanted to paint.  I, on the other hand, decided to wing it.

In addition to various-sized brushes, she used what appeared to be a cheese knife to spread the paint on her canvas.  I used my cheese knife for my cheese.

Look at the attention to detail.  My painting was more freestyle with considerably more dabbing and splatter.

And, the final touch, the smoke.

Voila!  A work of art.

And here’s my finished masterpiece.

Quite something, huh?  I call it Pang of Youth.

We were instructed to leave the paintings there to dry, and then return within the week to pick them up.  I imagined that, in that time, my masterpiece would catch someone’s eye – perhaps a famous art critic who frequents Raw Canvas.  He’ll take one look at my piece, declare it genius, and kickstart my new career!  Or, someone will steal it and sell it for tens of thousands of dollars!  For her part, Akemi simply said: “You’re a great writer but when it comes to art…”.

I suspect she’s jealous.

Tagged: Raw Canvas