Hi friends!

It has been a LONG TIME since I have posted, HOWEVER I did something really cool with students at our Overnighter last month, and I wanted to share it with you here!

First of all — I LOVE Overnighters, and I realize I’m overdue with an “official” post on why they are so great, and what we do at them! But the basic trick to them is this: scheduling something every hourish to keep students engaged. This year, we added “Bob Ross” hour at 2am! That’s right, 100 middle schoolers were invited to paint along to a Bob Ross Video at TWO A.M. And you know what? It was a SUCCESS!

HERE’S HOW I PREPPED:

The most important part was choosing the right video. I wanted it to be simple enough we could follow along — especially since “real” painters use a variety of brushes and paint colors. Here is the video I chose:

HERE’S WHAT I PURCHASED:

• Paint Tray Palettes. You could also, of course, use paper plates — but this was a really easy way for us to issue paint to students!
• Spatulas. We also used plastic knives too — which worked just fine.
• Fan Brushes. This is a variety pack — the size differences did not seem to matter.
• Acrylic paint. Bob uses oil paint, but that was not realistic when painting with students. I purchased 3 cases for around 65 paintings. We only used one, and maybe an additional white.
• One-inch brushes. Bob uses 2-inch brushes, but since we use a very tiny canvas, this worked better for us!
• 8×10 Canvas – This was the best bang for our buck, and worked just fine for our paintings. Each size item we purchased accompanied this size canvas perfectly.
• Flat Brushes – I don’t think Bob actually uses anything like this, but it’s nice to have a “normal” paint brush.

HERE’S WHAT WE DID:

• On each table, we set up cups of water, paper towels, and extra plates so that students could use them to blend colors
• We learned the hard way: You should also put down plastic tablecloths or butcher paper.
• On the Palettes, we put white in the center. Then we used the rest of the colors for the other holes. The only colors you don’t need are pink and orange. We also had adults do this — it was easier to create an assembly line than have students do theirs themselves.
• We passed out canvas and permanent markers first and told students to sign their names on the back. The canvases we used give space for students to even name their paintings!
• I led this activity, and painted along. I would tell students to listen to Bob fully, then I’d pause it after he did something and allow students to catch up.
• We let students “skip” painting the parts that they didn’t love. As it gets to the end and Bob starts doing the bushes and the path, it doesn’t make sense at first. This would be an awesome thing to preach on, if you have a message that evening! Sometimes you can’t see what God is doing, but if you go along with it you might get something beautiful and unexpected.

Here is a look at my painting (the best art I’ve ever done!) and a few other pictures of our activity!

I would 10/10 do again! We finished around 3am, and they were dried and ready by 7am. We had several kids get frustrated (our boys, let’s be honest) and trashed so they could play foosball or “reinterpreted” their paintings, as you can see. But overall, everyone loved the activity.