Creative Outlet

This evening, after a lovely afternoon with my officemate MC, I spent some time with the girls who are in relationships with the former boys’ club. (Even though only half of us are married to the group members of the group, I call us the Wives Club in my head. One day it will be true.) We “wives” (or maybe even “future wives”) spent our evening at a place called Sips ‘n Strokes. Dubious double-entendre aside, this place invites guests to sip their beverage of choice (for us: wine) while learning how to replicate a specific painting (the strokes portion). Tonight’s painting was sunflowers in a vase.

Observe step one:

Incredibly stressful--one of the measurements was actually a hand-width. I was practically trembling!

First, we outlined the general appearance of the painting before actually filling anything in. I thought I was going to die of anxiety. (The worst part of the entire experience, in my humble opinion, is picking up the brush, dipping it in a specific color of paint, and dragging it across the canvas. I hate that part.)

Two and a half hours of “wait, what’d she say” and “damn, I almost dipped my brush in my wine” later, and we had a final product:

Ohhh...it's sunflowers! I get it now!

How this happened is utterly beyond me. But the best part is that I did all of it by myself. Of course, the single caveat to that statement is a great big one: AB helped me a lot. She kept pointing to the places where I needed to fill in more, that sort of thing. She was the brave one who pioneered the canvas while I mimicked her. What I meant to say when I said that I did all of it by myself is that I didn’t have a teacher come and touch it at all. I was definitely tempted a few times, but I plowed on through anyway. So here’s to minor achievements.

And here’s the way my home looks now:

The pretty, framed painting on the left is the watercolor my granddaddy did for me of my bridal bouquet.

And the other two paintings i've done at this place. The one on the far right is the first one I ever did, and the red poppy is the one I painted at my sister's bachelorette party.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a little creative time with the girls. I was fortunate enough to have an entire day with my girl friends. I’m a lucky one! 🙂