Saturday, August 27, 2022

We Paint Again

As a part of my birthday celebrations, I arranged for a couple of us to get together to do a painting class - mainly because they are fun. but they're also a chance to get together, have some wine and snacks and do something different of an evening. I did one of these earlier in the year and greatly enjoyed it. You pay around $60, roch up on the night where you're provided with a canvas, easel, paints and brushes, and a teacher to tell you what to do.

Jonella and Norty joined me last night, all of us bringing our bodyweight in cheese, dips and other nibblies. Jonella brough along some red wine - I bought along some gin and a bottle of dry ginger ale (as this gin you drink with dry ginger - it's lovely). 

And we got down to it. 


I will never be a painter. I'm not good at it. But I loved every minute of the evening as we were taken throught the steps of painting a Picasso-like portrait. We mapped out our plans in chalk, using a dice and a chart to find ideas of hair, ears, eyes, a mouth and the like. 

Then you get on with the background, then blocking out the face, then getting down to the detail. 


What I love about these evening is that it challenges my addiction to perfection. It's a time to not be perfect, to try something different, and to allow yourself to break some rules. We were told to use and orange/pink background. I used a blue. There were all sorts of necklaces and ties on the list of accessories. I thought a purple polka-dotted bow tie would just be the business. And nobody said anything about putting a cat in the frame. Oh well, there sits Lucifer in this person's shoulder, happily looking out over the horizon. (I put a cat in the last painting I did, and he looks just as happy there as well).

What also gets me is how different everybody's painting turned out at the end of the night. There were 12 people at the studio last night - everybody's was different - and wonderful in their own right. 

Here's my finished product. I'm pretty happy with it. I'd love to get some better brush technique - I'm better at painting walls than painting pictures. I wish I'd discovered the turquoise paint earlier as well - I love that colour and it would have been great 

It can go straight to the pool room. 


Today's song:

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