A little wine with that canvas?

For the first time in her life, Johann Bosley followed in her father’s footsteps Wednesday.

Armed with blank canvas and a paper plate filled with paint, the Abita Springs resident stroked her canvas with hues of violet red and brown, on a mission to draw her first flower.

“I’m doing it with inspiration with my father in mind,” Bosley said of her famous father, New Orleans artist Peter Garza, who died last year. “I can see why he did it.”

Bosley was just one of about 15 people splashing paint on canvas, listening to rock and roll music and sipping wine at Mandeville’s Corks N’ Canvas, one of the area’s newest businesses for artist and non artists alike.

For between $35 and $45, owners Renee Maloney and Cathy Deano offer a way to for anyone with no prior art background to paint works of art ranging from French quarter homes, jazz musicians, landscapes, flowers, nudes and more, all instructed by a teacher. All participants paint the same picture, but the picture changes each session. The charges include canvas and paint. Wine must be brought from home.

“It just hit a cord,” Deano said. “People love it. It exposes people to painting that would have never before been exposed. People think they can’t do it, then the next day they are calling us, ‘I can’t believe I did this. I’m looking at it and its soo cool.’”

In fact, the business has gained such popularity since its opening in six months ago, Corks ‘N Canvas has already reached its three-year financial goal, a move that made it easy to open another branch Sept. 2 at 110 Focis Street in Metairie, off Old Metairie Road, Deano said.

Another shop is already in planning stages for Baton Rouge, “ If I don’t get too grey haired before then,” Deano said chuckling.

“It’s like karaoke,” Maloney said. “Everyone wants to sing, but never knew that they could. With this people that didn’t know they could paint, find out they can.”

The idea, however, is nothing new. Deano and Maloney just capitalized on the plan.

The two friends from old Mandeville, constantly joking and jiving with each other like a well-natured comedy act, heard about the idea one day while walking Mandeville’s lakefront.

With the pair walking in stride, Deano’s phone rang. It was a friend who had just visited a shop in Alabama that offered art classes and supplied the canvas for people with little or no art training. The entry fee buys materials and the participant takes the canvas home.

The pair immediately planned to check it out. Soon their cars were packed and headed for the La Quinta Hotel for the night. The next day they would check out the shop

“Neither of us thought we could paint,” Deano said. “There were 50 women in there and they were all having a ball.”

Returning with a twinkle in their eyes, the women decided to start a similar business in Mandeville

“There was something there and its not in Mandeville,” Deano said, recalling the trip.

“We went home and told out husbands and they rolled their eyes like, ‘OK. This is just one of your hair-brained ideas. Uh yea, whatever,” Maloney said.

The pair took it as a blessing to proceed. They went to the bank, found an empty building at 503 Girod Street, and set up shop. The rest is history.

Now people from New Orleans, Prairieville, St. Rose, Hammond and Baton Rouge have attended the classes four days a week, starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Private parties are available but must be booked at least a month in advance. And at times, people can attend fundraisers, where all the proceeds made from participants are donated to various charities including the St. Francis Art Association, Heart Association and a camp for kids diagnosed with cancer.

On Wednesday, Jeff Normad and his wife Prima attended the private party along with Bosley, about other 15 people, which is typically the regular class size with some fluctuations to no more than 30.

Jeff was celebrating his birthday, surrounded by women, he said joking.

“This is a nice place for a single guy,” he said, his wife Prima smiling as she sipped her wine.

“Yea,” she said later. “But this is his own birthday present and he has to make it.”