06/26/2026
Guest Column: An evening of painting at Beach restaurant made me feel like a kid again
By Beach Metro ● Columns ● June 1, 2026
Kristina Birkhan hosted a paint night at La Sala restaurant in the Beach earlier this year and a great time was had by all the participants, writes guest columnist Gabrielle Bauer. Photo by Gabrielle Bauer.
By GABRIELLE BAUER
When I signed up for Kristina Birkhans’ paint night this winter, I had the usual reservations: Why did I commit to leaving the house on such a cold day? What if it’s boring? What if the other participants are boring? What if my painting looks like crap?
I needn’t have worried.
As soon as I dipped my paintbrush into a glob of blue paint and smeared it on the blank canvas in front of me, I felt myself sliding into a world of childlike exploration, spontaneity, and pure silliness. I was no longer a 69-year-old woman with a husband, career, and home to maintain, but a little kid having a big old time.
The event took place at La Sala restaurant on Waverley Road, a charming structure with soaring ceilings and irregularly shaped alcoves. Not wanting to create my masterpiece on an empty stomach, I ordered the burrata appetizer (highly recommended) along with a glass of white wine.
There were three other participants in the group along with Kristina, our instructor. An accomplished artist and stained glass artisan who received formal visual arts training in Latvia, Kristina offered tips about painting techniques without ever making us feel we had to follow any rule. No prerequisites, no pressure, no judging.
The space reserved for the workshop, on the second floor of the restaurant, gave us full privacy, with just the right amount of light. At one end of our table, Kristina had placed a floral painting – a profusion of pinkish tulips against a grey-green background – that we were supposed to use loosely as a model for our own creations. She also provided each participant with paints, a set of paintbrushes and spatulas, and a blank canvas.
I took the “loosely” part seriously. After splashing a couple of drunk-looking tulips on my canvas, I went full Kandinsky and filled in the canvas with streaks, splotches, blotches, and bubble-wrap appliqués.
One of the participants, a dude from Nova Scotia whose East Coast humour took no prisoners, did not stop ribbing me about my painting. “Can I take another peek at your masterpiece, Picasso?” he would say between sips of his wine. “I know it must be great art because it makes no sense to me at all.”
What most fascinated me about the evening was the shift in my own mindset. My usual persona – ambitious, competitive, and somewhat anxious – stepped aside, replaced by a playfulness I didn’t know still lived inside me.
As a freelance health and medical writer, I expect constant judgment from editors and other clients: make it longer, make it shorter, make it sound more academic, less academic, and so forth. It’s all par for the course and keeps me on my toes as a writer. What the paint night taught me is that we all need a respite from the world’s judgments; a place to create for the sake of creating, whether the output ever makes it to a newspaper or a picture frame.
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At some point, the Nova Scotian jokester ordered a round of wine for all of us, and sometime later the owner of the restaurant materialized with shot glasses of Limoncello. (I paid for this excess with a headache the next morning, but no regrets.)
Once our paintings were done, we propped them up on walls and window ledges… and left them behind. We had a blast making them and didn’t need to own them.
I’m already looking forward to Kristina’s next paint night and would encourage anyone seeking to reconnect with their inner child to sign up. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.
Gabrielle Bauer is an award-winning freelance medical and health writer living in the Beach. To find more about Kristina’s paint nights, check the Toronto Beaches Facebook Group posts or contact her directly at [email protected]
Great article online for the Beach Metro. Please take some time and read if you can. Always so much fun participating in Paint n Sip with Kristina Birkhans . Can't wait for the next one!
