The oldish new thing is to go to these events where an artist teaches you how to paint a picture, and drink adult beverages.

Except I don’t drink, so I went to one of these events on Saturday night and learned to paint a thing. It was also a fundraiser so I went and learned to paint a thing for a good cause (or so my cousin Alyssa can be sent away on dance competiton trips. One or the other, or both.)

We signed in, flipped our canvases around (to claim them), and then waited for the fun to start. Then we flipped our canvases back the right way.

Note my non-alcoholic $2.50 iced tea beside my canvas there. Also I thought I was totally going to need more red eventually, but nope. Then we had to promise to not say that our thing sucked at any point. Which just meant that my cousin Jenn and I quietly discussed our perceived suck-ness at the break. 😉 (I said perceived suck-ness. It’s subjective, just like art, it’s fiiiine. We did it quietly at break and whatever.)

This was not my favourite picture I could have painted, but I guess that just means they’ll sell me on another event, right? This is the artist’s.

I was mildly confident going in, except for I think I’m more confident (and do better, even, possibly) when I can actually self-depreciate a little bit. It’s like, motivating-ish. Self-depreciation, and other related things, were against the “oath” we took before we started painting. Which mostly meant I had to be quiet about it. I am okay with making fun of myself, it does not bother me. There must be research supporting this!

Anyways.

Phase one, sky. I intended to take a picture every time we were forced to stop for instructions, except—typical—i did not always listen to that instruction.

Phase two: Grass. Here’s the part where I started hating on my grass. I mean, I was partly more engrossed in painting the sky all pretty than I was listening to the grass tutorial.
I mean, I listened but then I returned to painting sky. Jungle grass is what I ended up with here. So, I started hating on my grass out of earshot of the instructor who would surely tell me it looks fiiiine like Alyssa and my aunt did.

Alyssa and I also pretended we knew things about art before we started. Which, nope not really.

Phase three: And then there were flowers. Also later on the artist told us that taking a picture would make our paintings look better if we weren’t happy with them. So, I mean, yeah, maybe my grass looks better after having taken a picture of it?  Or that could be that I did a bunch of touching up with black and white and stuff in there.

Mine, the sample, and the instructional piece. In retrospect (aka 10 minutes after painting the orange in), bigger clouds would have been excellent.

I thought I’d have some good, introspective things to say here when I decided, pre-painting, that I was writing a blog post on this—something self-expression-y or therapeutic or whatever. Like when I went to thermea or when I started creating things on purpose last year. Instead, I found this a bit of a challenge and that I was rather hyperfocused, which in some situations is good, and others it is extremely frustrating and difficult—last night was the latter, I think. Like, I legitimately missed the how to paint the flower instruction (which ended up totally okay) beyond “Start with a V” because I was still working on the grass (I copied Alyssa, it was cool). So, I do think that aspect—which can vary on a day to day basis—might have detracted from the experience a bit. (And maybe I should do my next Paint Nite without my ADHD meds—except I might still hyperfocus anyways. Also I didn’t intend for this to wind up being about ADHD either. It just truly does affect everything.

With that, I’ll end this with an after-the-fact realization that in life, we’re all creating the same thing, but they’re all going to turn out differently because we are who we are. Or something.

(Photo cred to my aunt, Linda)

That’s the Paint Nite nugget of wisdom. Maybe the “drink creatively” slogan is what leads to the insight—or, at least more creative acceptance ;). (Not that I’m going to start now.) 

PS. Yes, I did sign my painting with a Sharpie once I got home.