Paint & Sip with Harrods: A Corporate Art Workshop in Notting Hill
- China Jordan
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
What happens when you put 15 Harrods employees in a room with paint, drinks and a blank canvas?
Apparently, quite a lot of surprisingly brilliant artwork.
In February 2025, I was invited to run a Paint & Sip workshop for Harrods employees as part of a team-building event in Notting Hill, London.
The aim was simple: give the team a relaxing creative experience where they could switch off from work, spend time together and, importantly, take something home that they could actually feel proud of.
And they definitely did.
A relaxed team-building activity with a creative twist
The group had hired a pub in Notting Hill for their team event to get away from the office and get a change of scene. My 1.5-hour painting workshop was one of the activities they had planned, and to be honest, they had planned an awesome day for their staff that wasn't just painting with me.
They wanted to paint landscapes, so I started by showing everyone a simple technique for blending acrylic paint and creating the beginnings of a landscape.
I then gave everyone a choice-
They could use one of the reference images I'd brought along, or they could paint something they'd already imagined themselves.
I always like giving the booker that freedom. Someone people want a full step-by-step guide, and some want absolute freedom. There are pro's and con's to both, and for this workshop, it was defiantely an advantage given them so much felxibility. Just wait till you see what they made!
"I can't paint."
This is probably the sentence I hear most often when I run art workshops. People arrive convinced that they're either naturally artistic or they're not.
But that's not really how painting works.
Some people in the Harrods group were nervous. Others were excited. It was actually a lovely mixture because not everyone arrived with the same expectations or confidence. The open minded ones positively infected the pessimists with a 'can do' attitude.
And then something started to happen.
Once I'd shown them a way into the painting, they got going.
At the beginning, people were asking lots of questions and looking for direction. But once they understood the process, they became increasingly independent.
In fact, I reached a point where I wasn't needed very much at all ... so when an art teacher is bored...or at least when Im board, I like to chit chat and gossip. So I had a great time!
I wasn't expecting that much talent!
My job isn't to paint everyone's picture for them. It's to give people enough knowledge and confidence that they can take over and discover what they're capable of.
One of the biggest surprises for me was just how talented some of the group were.
I'd arrived expecting a fairly typical mixture of complete beginners and people who had done a bit of painting before.
Instead, about half of the group turned out to be incredibly good.
They were coming up with brilliant ideas, experimenting with the techniques I'd shown them and taking inspiration from what the people around them were doing.
Some hadn't painted before at all.
Yet there were 15 very satisfied artists by the end, and this time, I'm not just saying it.
And that's one of my favourite things about running corporate art workshops.
You can watch someone's confidence change in the space of an hour.
They start by asking, "Am I doing this right?" Then they get into it. Then they start making decisions for themselves. And eventually they're completely absorbed in what they're doing.
Why does painting work so well for team building?
I think there's something quite different about doing art together.
When you're sitting around a table painting, people naturally start talking and it doesn't feel forced. You can sit in silence, listen, or open up which tends to happen more than you'd think.
You're also not being asked to complete an awkward team-building exercise where everyone has to stand up and introduce themselves with three interesting facts.
You're just making something together.
People start looking at each other's paintings. They ask questions. They discover things about their colleagues they didn't know before. And because everyone's concentrating on something with their hands, the usual work barriers start to come down.
Painting requires concentration. Your brain has to be present. For a little while, you're not thinking about emails, meetings or whatever was happening at work that day.
You're just thinking about the painting in front of you. I think there's something quite intimate about that.
Painting in front of other people can almost feel like getting naked in front of them — you're putting your creativity, your decisions and your mistakes on display. Once everyone gets over that initial vulnerability, something quite magical happens.
People relax.
You don't have to be "good at art"
This is probably the biggest misconception I see at corporate art workshops.
People think they need to be artistic before they can enjoy painting.
They don't.
They just need someone to show them what to do. That's particularly important in a corporate setting because people have very different experiences of art. Some people haven't picked up a paintbrush since school. Others secretly love painting but haven't had the time to do it for years.
A good workshop should work for both.
For the Harrods team, watching what their colleagues were creating also became part of the experience. People influenced each other, borrowed ideas and started experimenting.
The result was 15 completely different paintings rather than 15 copies of the same picture.
And everyone went home with something they'd made themselves.
A simple setting can be enough
The workshop took place in a private event room of a pub which worked really well. It didn't need to be a fancy venue. In fact, I think that's part of the appeal of a Paint & Sip workshop, to make it accessible, humanise it and take it off its pedestal. Give people a table, some paints, a drink, a bit of guidance and permission to switch off for an hour and a half — and they can do the rest.
The drinks certainly helped everyone relax, too!
There was plenty of energy in the room when I arrived because the team had already been enjoying their day together. They were enthusiastic and ready to get stuck in and by the end, everyone was genuinely happy with what they'd created.
They were proud of themselves.
That's the bit I love most.
A corporate art workshop people actually remember
The Harrods team found me through a Google search, which is always particularly lovely because it means someone was actively looking for a creative team-building activity and found ArtistAnd.
They were looking for something relaxing, creative and rewarding — something where their employees could actually take something home at the end. I think a corporate Paint & Sip workshop ticks all of those boxes. It's creative without being intimidating, social without being forced and relaxing without simply sitting around doing nothing.
Most importantly, it's something people don't normally make time to do.
And if a company can give its employees an experience they wouldn't necessarily give themselves, while also creating an opportunity for people to connect in a completely different way, that's a pretty good team-building activity in my book.
I'm always thrilled when people tell me afterwards that they've had a great time.
But when someone leaves a workshop holding something they've painted themselves and says, "I can't believe I actually did that," that's the real win.
Want to organise a Paint & Sip workshop for your team?
I run corporate Paint & Sip and art workshops in London for teams of all abilities.
You don't need to be artistic, and you definitely don't need to know how to paint before you arrive.
I'll show you how.
The rest is up to you.
[Enquire about a corporate Paint & Sip workshop →]
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