Yup! I actually picked up a paintbrush

On Saturday I arrived at class early (over achieving Virgo that I am), and set myself up in what I thought was the perfect spot to view the instructor painting his canvas.  WRONG!!  It was the worst spot in the room.  All I saw all day was the instructor's back blocking the canvas!  And I was hemmed in between two other painters so I could not move to see what he was painting.  Ah well.  In retrospect, it made me concentrate on what I was doing, what was actually coming from me not copied from the instructor.  Sounds good in theory, but I soon realized that without some basic knowledge about color, technique, value, edges and composition I was totally clueless.  There was no way I could put on canvas what I felt inside without some rudimentary knowledge of what it was I was doing.  Naive, right?  Right! 

So class begins.  We all introduce ourselves and give a little background in our art endeavors.  Since I have NO background, my introduction is short and sweet!  GROAN!  Everyone else had been painting since childhood it seems or had parents who were artists, etc, etc,etc.  And then there was me.  No chance to escape because I was hemmed in, remember?  I had no choice but to start opening my brand new paint tubes, lay out a palette and at least pretend I knew what I was doing.  Fortunately, the instructor had us read Carlson's Guide to Landcape Painting so I wasn't completely in the dark and had a little advantage over that 5 year old boy I met in the art store a few days earlier. 

At the end of class, I wandered around and looked at everyone's paintings.  I was amazed!!  No one had one that looked even remotely like the instructor's!!!  There was hope for me yet!!  By far my favorite was the painting done by a  fiftyish woman who shared with us that she had been painting since she was a child but quit when she found out she had cancer.  This class was the first time she picked up a brush again and I loved, loved, loved her painting.  It had a brilliant yellow and orange sky!!  Talk about hope!  Talk about knowing what you want to say and having the skills to put it on canvas!!  Beautiful, simply beautiful!!!  I packed up my things, gingerly picked up my wet canvas and headed home with a little smile on my face and a heart full of contentment.  Maybe this isn't going to be so hard afterall.  I do not know.  I will find out on Wednesday when I begin a 6 week course on still lifes.  In the meantime I am reading the book in preparation for this class.  It is entitled ALLA PRIMA- Everything I Know About Painting by Richard Schmid.  It is a magnificent book!!  He is a magnificent painter.  Oh to be able to paint like that!!   A girl can dream!!!!