My Inner Artist

A coworker of mine, who also happens to be the girl I share an office with, invited me to a girls' day out she was planning for this past Saturday. I didn't know anyone else in the group, but the event sounded like so much fun that I had to go. 

It was to a group painting class of sorts at a place not far from where I live, though I'd never heard of it. The store is called Painting with a Twist and it is a really cool idea. You pay a fee to join a group who has an artist assigned to it. And they walk you through the steps of creating a selected painting. Click through for pictures!

The way it works is you can choose to join a scheduled session and paint whatever selected painting is chosen for that time slot or you can create a group of your own and choose your own painting from the ones available.

So our group voted on one called "Tree of Light."

The class started with reviewing the rules:

Then we began orienting ourselves with the tools and supplies at our stations. Below are all of the colors used in our painting.

It was a little stressful getting started ... figuring out how much paint to put on the brush, how much of the different colors to mix together, getting it to go on smoothly without too many obvious brush strokes being left on the canvas.

And of course, looking back now, there are a few things I would attempt that I was unsure about, it being my first time painting and all (well, since junior high art class, technically). But you can't get down on yourself (rule # 1!) and I think that's the way it is with art. You always want to adjust, manipulate and improve. I think I understood for the first time why some of the famous artists remade so many of their paintings.

I always wondered why they would want to paint the exact same thing over and over, but now I think I get it.

We started with the background.

Then, we started adding the skeletons of our trees. As much as I was trying to follow the instructor pretty closely since I was nervous, I really wanted to make my own tree, rather than copy the sample exactly. (Plus, I would've had to crane my neck repeatedly to keep looking back at it.)

So all of the branch choices are my own, which I'm proud of. It definitely took some focus moving from just background strokes to drawing sharp lines. I think I could do even better with practice!

Finally, we started adding the layers of color that created our lights for the tree. It's amazing how differently everyone's versions of the same painting turned out! Different uses of color, opacity, placement, quantity, etc. It was definitely a learning experience to see how much variety there can be within one basic idea.

Here's mine:

And look! If you're not already super proud of the number of pictures I've actually remembered to take of this day, I also remembered to take one with my friend (and coworker) Andee so you could meet her. See how cool and different her painting is from mine?

I just think this is such a neat idea. I really want to go back and try some other paintings now, and bring Adam and other people who haven't gone. They have so many paintings, you could go 50 times without getting bored or having to paint the same thing.

I've hung mine above my desk at work because I didn't have anything on the walls and, now that I actually have walls (however long that lasts), it's a perfect use for them!

Lastly, here's the group photo. If you ever have the opportunity to try something like this, go for it! It was so much fun!