Scottsdale Brush Bar pairs pints, painting

Allante Battle is not a painter. At least, that's what he insisted before picking up a brush last weekend and becoming the star student at the Brush Bar in Scottsdale.

The 22-year-old Tempe resident pulled a Thomas Kinkade on his inebriated (some) and admiring classmates.

Maybe he was hustling them with the "I can't paint" bit. Maybe he's naturally gifted and had no idea. Or, maybe it was the liquid inspiration from the Blue Moon beer beside his easel.

The Brush Bar is Bob Ross with booze. The downtown studio features a beer and wine bar in front and a painting area in the back, allowing aspiring Picassos to relax with a Michelob while painting their next, or first, masterpiece.

Gia Ciliento and Brett Strachan, both 26, of Scottsdale, own the place with Ciliento's father, Angelo.Ciliento and Strachan tag-team instruction and bartending, keeping the mood light and fun. An upbeat soundtrack from Ciliento's iPod helps get people singing and dancing, too.

Ciliento and Strachan were inspired by the Denver-based Canvas and Cocktails concept. The Brush Bar opened in August and has stayed pretty busy since, booking private events, conducting outreach to local schools and hosting family nights, open studio time and evening classes.

Classes range in price from $25 to $40, and include all supplies and one drink. After that, it's a cash bar. Some may want a second glass of wine, and others may pony up for a bottle. And, yes, the bar is open during the day when the studio is open for drop-in painting.

"There's no right or wrong to this," Ciliento said into a headset mike in front of a class of 19 who signed up to paint a piece called "Lover's Lane" on a Friday night.

The bar assigns paintings to various evenings throughout the month, so everyone in the class is painting the same subject. Interpretation is up to the artist. Each painter fills his own palette with squirts of acrylic paint from bottles on the side, and then mixes them according to how the teacher instructs, or how their creativity guides them.

The sample "Lover's Lane" featured a rain-slicked, burgundy-toned street, lighted by tall lampposts that reflect into the dark night sky. Battle's interpretation of "Lover's Lane" featured a slate-colored street hugged by snow-capped evergreens and lit by lamps encased in icicles.

"This is the first time I've painted on canvas before. I love it," Battle said, seated next to his impressed girlfriend, Kelsey McCormick. "I was totally thinking this was going to be paint-by-number. I didn't know what to expect."

Lindsay Nordstrom, 33, of Phoenix, was pretty happy with her efforts. She followed Ciliento's instruction as close as she could, shading where she suggested and sticking with the colors on the sample piece.

"If you lean back, it's pretty cool," Nordstrom said, taking in her painting from a few inches back. "It's pretty good. It's OK."

Hockney in dig at Hirst art process

Painter David Hockney has criticised the likes of Damien Hirst, saying artists should create their own work.

Yorkshire-born Hockney, 74, whose major exhibition of landscapes opens at the Royal Academy this month, told the Radio Times that it was "insulting" for an artist to employ others to make their creations.

A poster for his show at the Royal Academy reads: "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally."

Asked if he was having a dig at Hirst, famous for covering a human skull with 8,601 flawless diamonds and suspending a shark in formaldehyde, Hockney nodded and said: "It's a little insulting to craftsmen, skilful craftsmen."

He added: "I used to point out at art school, you can teach the craft, it's the poetry you can't teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft."

Hockney quoted a Chinese saying that to paint "you need the eye, the hand and the heart. Two won't do." "The other great thing they said - I told this to Lucian Freud - is, 'painting is an old man's art'. I like that!," Hockney said.

Hockney, who returned to his native Yorkshire after decades in California, has been working on his latest show for more than three years. "It took me three days to say, 'Yes, OK...' There was quite a lot of work, but I'm an opportunist... We rose to the occasion," he said.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture spans a 50-year period to show the artist's long exploration and fascination with the depiction of landscape. The Royal Academy show will include a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films produced using 18 cameras. A retrospective of Hirst's work opens at Tate Modern in April.

Hirst has defended using assistants to make his spot paintings, saying that they could do the work better as he found it boring to paint them himself.

Hockney was appointed a member of the prestigious Order of Merit by the Queen at the weekend.