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Like I have mentioned a zillion times, B and I went to Painting With A Twist on Friday night. My Dad (so random) went last year for a work event and thought I would enjoy it so he got me a gift card for Christmas last year. I spend most of the year stalking the classes trying to settle on the perfect thing to paint. And then I’d wait too long to sign up and we’d be busy or it’d be sold out. Finally, I found “Winter Night” which was totally perfect.
So class started at 7pm, but they recommended that you get there early to check in, find your seat (they pre-assign) and all that. That took all of two seconds, so B and I basically sat around looking at each other waiting for class to start. Everything is totally set up for you. You have all your paints on a plate, brushes in water, etc. They give you aprons as well. And when you are done, you just leave your mess and head home.
So I’d seen a bunch of people’s paintings (including my Dad’s) and thought WTF, I would never be able to do that, but the instructor swore that it would happen so I went with it. We started by drawing a horizon line and then drew in some lines in pencil for our winter pathway. And then were instructed to make a tornado shape and “thing” next to it. The instructor tells you were it needs to go, what color(s) to use, etc. Ours both drew on a dry erase board and painted her own painting along with us.
And then we filled in the rest of the sky area with dark blue. Easy enough! My phone was totally dying during this and dumb me didn’t charge my block charger, so I had to snap these fast!
After the sky we started in on our snowy pathway. I’m not sure what was up with all the yellow, but again I just went with it. B’s painting style used more long brush strokes. I kind of just dabbed my paintbrush around where I felt necessary.
Obviously a lot seemed to have happened in between these two pictures. LOL! The instructor told us exactly where to paint, what brush to use for which section, etc. And everyone was drinking (we bought mini bottles of wine which were delicious) and scoping out everyone else’s work. Also, the place was full of women. It was B and one other guy and all women. And I think they sat B and the other dude next to each other on purpose.
Once we painted in the lampposts, things really started to look better. I quickly realized that painting straight lines is not my thing at all. If you ran out of paint there was an area in the back that you could help yourself to more. Also, there was about a 15 minute break in class that you could leave and get more wine if necessary. Our class was 3 hours long, but honestly, we could have done it in two if we’d worked a little faster and maybe drank a little mess. However, no one likely wants that. Plus, I was entertained by questions like “what colors do I need to mix to make green” after people started drinking ;).
The final step was the trees! I totally screwed one of mine up (the second one in on the right) and ended up redoing all of the branches. They have hair dryers set up in the room for drying your painting quick if necessary!
For reference, here is what the painting looked like online. I didn’t think anyone’s paintings in the class looked horrible by any means.
Classes range from $25 to $45/person (ours were $45) and I would totally go back and paint again! B and I had fun and I thought it was quite a stress reliever. All you really think about for that time is painting. I totally see why George Bush is all into painting. Also, B doesn’t know it yet, but we are totally going when they do a “Paint Your Pet ” session. OMG how fun would that be! Painting Baxter and Buddy!
Have you been to Painting With A Twist or somewhere similar? What’d you paint? And if you have never been do you think you’d like it?
