Friday, September 12, 2008

I am no Picasso

And I certainly am no Monet.  Not that I thought I was before tonight.  I was just made more abundantly clear.

Tonight I had dinner with a couple of friends followed by a couple of hours at a local art gallery.  I spent two hours creating my very own masterpiece on canvas under the supervision of an art instructor.  Not him:

 

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Tonight’s theme:  a man in a sailboat 

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Yes, the left-handed artistically challenged Greek girl was going to recreate this photo on her own canvas.  Riiiight.

No laughing please.  This was serious business.  When my own money is involved, it is serious.  We sat down to a blank canvas atop a desktop tripod, a large jar of water and our palette included several colors of acrylic paint plopped on a Styrofoam plate!  Nothing screams fancy art gallery more than Styrofoam.

First task at hand, create brown paint from the blobs of color on our plate.  Couldn’t they spare me the right-off-the-bat failure by putting brown paint on our plate.  Has anyone tried to make brown paint from red, yellow, blue and magenta???  It ain’t easy, let me tell you.

After using a template to trace the outline of the boat, the painting instructor walked us through the mixing of paint colors and how to apply it to our canvas.  Let me just say, my type-A instincts were trying to let go and just feel the painting.  I wanted to be the painting.  I wanted “happy trees”.  As you can see, I meant serious business:

 

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The perfectionist in me found herself a bit behind the instructions.  My friends were sick of me saying, “now what do we do next” and “how do we mix that color”? 

After two hours of instructions, my friends and I found ourselves with self-painted masterpieces of some guy in a sailboat.  Ta da.

 

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Now the next question is, what in the world am I going to do with my creation?  Maybe I’ll hang it in the bathroom  or use it for a blog giveaway, since I’m famous and who wouldn’t want this hanging on their wall.  I’m sure I could get a couple bucks for it on e-bay.  Or not.

10 comments:

Valarie Lea said...

I think you did a very good job! You should be proud of yourself. :)

Shannon (muzbeecrazy.com) said...

Wow, I'm impressed with all 3 of your paintings. That sounds like a terrific Mom's Night Out!

Lisa said...

I think it looks great! I don't know what you should do with it, but it is much better than anything I could've done!
At least you had fun with your friends!

DD said...

where are the "puffy little clouds" and the "happy trees"

Unknown said...

Hmmm ... where would you hang a portrait of a man you don't know in a sailboat?

Anonymous said...

I like it! My daddy is an artist- and he is so intense! He never paints things the real way they look- he likes to paint things weird colors and put things in the scene that he thinks should be there- Very artsy fartsy! Lives in his own world-Drives me nutso! We are nothing alike! Oh. I am rambling- I think I should just go blog about him!

Teresa said...

Great job Cubby! But I'm pretty sure if you're going to become all artistic, we can't be friends anymore.

If you ever recreate the dogs playing poker let me know.

The Source said...

Very cool. I like how you each painted the same exact thing, but they each have subtle differences. Looks like y'all had fun!

Leigh of Tales from Bloggeritaville said...

IT IS GORGEOUS! That is so funny! When my girlfriends were painting a week or two ago, we also were discussing Bob and his happy trees. That guy was great! I think you should do a blog givewaway. I would so love to win it! Wonderful job Tammy!

j said...

You are on a roll! Some guy in a sailboat? Love it!

I think your painting was good and you looked good painting. And I am sure there are some happy little trees in there somewhere.