Welcome to our new studio blog!

Hello friends! How have you been enjoying your summer up to now? Are you spending some time by the pool with a nice cool drink in hand? Or maybe doing some gardening? Are you playing a team sport in a park near your home? Firing the BBQ and making burgers for neighbors and friends? Are you just enjoying some guilt-free, lazy summer time in your backyard?

We do hope you are taking advantage of this wonderful season! But if for some reason you are looking for something fun to do… we at Lupton Street Studios are there with an awesome program 😉 Our summer classes are going on and it’s never too late to join us for music lessons, paint classes, Curious Kids clubs, etc.!

By the way we have a Summer camp coming up soon and there are still some spots left! Make sure to check it out!!!

In between our classes and special activities, we have been creating a little something fun and colorful to celebrate summer time, holidays and sun-filled days. Take it as a little gift from us, a little touch of whimsy added to your summer holidays 😉 See you very soon friends, hopefully for one of our special summer fun programs and classes!

Before our world took a break from “normal” for a few years, I lead paint evenings on a regular basis in restaurants and pubs.

I’ve seen all kinds of people coming to these events: best friends looking for a cool kind of evening together. Moms on an evening out to nourish their own soul. Artists who would blow me away, and people who hadn’t touched a paint brush since kindergarten. Boyfriends who were coming to make their girlfriend happy, and ended up loving their experience, etc.

Two things would make me particularly happy, and I want to share them with you.

First – I loved people who had little to no experience in painting. They would invariably come in, look at the painting for the evening, and tell me with a nervous smile: “I’ll never be able to do THAT!”

I would smile, and tell them: “It is my job tonight to make sure you end up with something much better than what you think you can do. Trust me, you’ll be surprised! And… a little drink will definitely help the process!”

I was able to say it with confidence, because in all the times I’ve done this, the number of disasters I’ve had on my hands was astonishingly small. Not because I’m some sort of genius. It’s just that the paintings selected for these evenings were made out of very simple steps – all you need to know is how to break it down in simple steps that everybody can reproduce with very little difficulty. Even the most hesitant ones would end up doing something they never thought they could. It wasn’t Van Gogh or Rembrandt, but it was theirs, and they were proud!

If they hesitated about the final product, I’d play a little trick on them. I’d tell them to hold their painting, I’d take a picture and show it to them. Invariably, they would be surprised: “I’ve painted THIS?!” Once they saw their painting on the screen, somehow, it helped them see it as a whole, instead of focusing on the small details that bugged them. They could see it with a more objective eye, and they were amazed at how good it looked!

I absolutely loved that moment. It was magical.

The other thing that would make my night was when I had a rogue in the group.

Sometimes, it was somebody who clearly had artistic abilities and would go off on their own interpretation of the theme of the evening. They would add details, they would play with colors, shades and tones, they would totally make it theirs and I loved seeing them just improvise with their brushes!

At other times, it was a person with a bit of an original streak that would think of something humorous or off the wall and just go for it. I’ve seen it all: a SWAT team dropped in the middle of a serene winter scene. Intergalactic fried eggs (don’t ask). A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with a Bob Ross afro, holding a palette and paint brushes. As soon as I would see something like that happen on one of the canvases, I’d tell that person to just go for it, and I’d keep an eye on it all evening. It totally made my night!!

All of this to say how excited we are to bring this type of evening back!!! I cannot wait to see you guys join us at Just John’s for a nice cool drink and a bite to eat, as we go through the steps of this beautiful Tropical Evening painting, or the other designs coming up this summer!

I’m looking forward to meet all of you: don’t count yourself out because you think you cannot do it! As I’ve said before, it’s my job to prove you wrong. One way or another, it will be a really fun evening, and if all goes well, as I think it will, you’ll end up with something you can proudly hang up in your living room!

Visit our website to reserve your spot, places are limited! Come with a family member or a friend, or come by yourself if that’s what floats your boat! Treat yourself to our Sip ‘N Paint nights at Just John’s!

GAHHHHH we cannot wait for our Summer Camp! We’ve got activities for everyone. Painting, crafts, lego challenges, playdoh fun, drama activities, games, music, outside activities, and more! Either come to our Morning Camp, 9am-12pm, to our Afternoon Camp, 12:30pm-3:30pm, or come to both and stay all day, Monday-Friday! There’s so much fun to be had and we can’t wait for it to begin. Register now to claim that spot! Kids ages 6-12 are welcome to join. If you plan on doing the all day camp, make sure to bring a packed lunch!

Mothers’ Day is coming soon. You would like to do something special for Mom, Grandma or another special lady in your life. Flowers and chocolate are nice, but you’d like to shake things up a little. What would be fun and special and unique…?

A full-on scrapbook is a long endeavour. Maybe you don’t have that much time on your hands. How about something in the same vein, but smaller and… well, cooler?

Meet the Explosion Album, the creative combination of scrapbooking and origami! Three big squares of heavy paper get folded in a particular way. When you fold them together, you get a neat little square booklet-type of bundle. But when you unfold it, it reveals all kinds of secrets and a much bigger surface to work on that appears at first!

What makes an Explosion Album so much fun, is all the little surprises and secrets you can hide in it.

In the video I shared with you, you can see an album I’ve made about my nephew Vincent. There’s decoupaged shapes of his kitty, Chucky. There are pockets where I hid pictures transformed into cute bookmarks. There are mini-booklets that are bound with an eyelet so you can twist them open.

That is what makes an explosion album such a fun craft to realize and a really special present to offer. It seems to keep on giving as you explore it! You can make it as simple or as intricate as you’d like. You can make one that is your own little secret pocket to hide precious keepsakes. Once you know how to make one, it kinda becomes addictive! You always want to create another one!

So, what type of material is necessary to make your own explosion album?

You start with three large squares of heavy craft paper – this is important so it can survive multiple folding and unfolding. I used three sheets of 12×12 heavy scrapbook paper. You will also need two 6×6 squares of slightly heavier cardboard – you can cut them from an old cereal box.

From there, whatever you have under hand can be used to embellish and personalize your album: wrapping paper, strings and ribbons, stickers and stamps, pictures, buttons, drawings and doodles, etc. Let your imagination run wild!

For Mothers’ Day, you can include a little secret envelope where you can hide wishes from your heart, a little poem, or just a few words to tell the person you’re making it for how much you love her.

Check out our upcoming events for the chance to come and try your hand at one of these marvelous little treasures…? See you soon!

Our next Curious Kids session starts in just two weeks! Every session I try and include fan favourites, new classes, and old classes we haven’t done in awhile. Lego is our most popular class so of course that class will be available both in our Jarvis Studio and Simcoe Studio. Mixed Bag will be making its return! A class that is something different every class such as: arts, crafts, playdoh, lego, music, drama, games, and so much more. It’s a great class for kids that aren’t too sure what they like or like having a variety of fun! This session we will be bringing Mixed Bag to Jarvis and Simcoe! I also would like to try out a new class, Disney Night! A fun fact about me, I had the opportunity to work in Disney World down in Florida. Disney is something I hold close to my heart and would love to share my love for it. Disney based games, trivia, pin trading, movies, shows, colouring, Star Wars, Marvel, just everything Disney! This new session will be a lot of fun and I can’t wait to get started on it! 

-Travis

Here, at Lupton Street Studios, when we do a painting session, whether with kids or adults, we always start with the same five colours.

Yellow, blue and red, as you probably know, are the primary colours. Black and white are not considered colours but they allow us to create all kinds of variations in our palette.

Why only these five hues? Well, I myself as a painter discovered two universal truths about colour…

The first one was that if I wanted to own a tube of every colour that exists, it would cost me horrible amounts of money. It would also take way too much space in my craft room. I mean, I love shopping at my local Arts and Crafts store. But there’s a limit to the amount of dollars I’m able to shell out on that yummy bran new shade of blue…

This hard truth led me to the second discovery. I decided that if I wasn’t gonna buy every different colour available, I had to try and recreate them. I poured some of my trusted basic primary colours unto a plate, and started trying all kinds of mixes and combinations.

Cue the music of angels singing in heaven as a ray of light shines down on my head: a portal of creative expression opened wide in front of my eyes. I was mixing all kinds of pinks, purples or greens, some light, some dark, some very bright and peppy, some subdued and delicate… There was simply no limit to what you could come up with.

This is why I rarely give pre-mixed colours in my painting events. I like to give a chance to every participant to discover that it does not matter if you don’t come up with the exact same shade of blue as me. What matters is that you discover that YOU are in control, and you can create the mix that pleases you the most!

Check this video to get just a glimpse of the adventure of mixing colours. You will also discover that terms we tend to use interchangeably like hue, tint, shade or tone, actually have very different meanings! Have you ever explored colours in this way? I’m challenging you to try it!

Our next Curious Kids session starts March 21st! The thing I love about our Curious Kids sessions, is that every session has some kid favourites, mixed in with some brand new classes and returning classes. There is always something for someone. Lego, Drama, Musical Theatre, Dungeons&Dragons, we are always trying to broaden our horizons. The thing I love most is the social aspect of it all. Meeting new friends, having fun, creating, learning the list goes on. I can’t wait to start our new session next week!

-Travis