This month, I’m taking a different spin on Fitville and talking about getting creative and finding my inner artist. I had to dig deep to find it, but it was there hiding in the corner of my body, shaking as I grabbed it and dusted it off.
What I’m trying to say here is that I don’t consider myself an artist. Creative, yes. Artist, no.
So here’s how it started: I convinced my husband to join me at a paint night because I didn’t want to go alone. I told him the night before, and it did take a few minutes for him to approve, but I managed to convince him.
We got ready and headed out for the two-hour event, not knowing what to expect. We began at 7:00 p.m. sharp and started by wetting about three to four inches of canvas. Then the instructor, Deb Brissette, told us to dip into the blue paint and brush it on the canvas in an X motion.
I can do this, I thought to myself, still with no idea what we were painting. This is easy.
Next we added some purple, brushed that on in the X motion, then some dark blue.
Now came the scary part. Deb wanted us to add black to the beautiful blue sky. I hesitated, looked to my left, and saw that my husband had completely covered his blue sky in black. We had a chuckle and then he added more blue to lighten in. I proceeded to add black, very cautiously, around the edges and then blend it in.
Up next was snow, caking on the white and layering it. That was easy, but there was more. Deb then showed us how to shade the white to create hills and rocks.
Don’t screw this up, I kept telling myself.
Now we had to do trees. Big trees, right in the foreground. Deb showed us how to make pine trees and birch trees. I again cautiously added black lines up my painting, worried that I was going to mess it up. But it turned out looking just fine.
After stepping back and analyzing my painting, I thought it was missing a little something. So I decided to add a fence—and that’s when I finally let loose and freely drew fence posts and the wire crossing them. I have to admit, it was fun. Then I figured the scene could use a pond in the distance. Easy peasy. Add some blue and white, a dash of black around the edges, perfecto!
At the end of the night, we were both laughing and giggling at each other’s paintings. A successful night it was!
My husband is actually interested in coming to another paint night. Who knew?
Get creative this spring and have fun doing it.
