Canvas Painting + Wine

blank....freaks me out

A blank canvas.  This scares me.  A lot.  I sit down in front of one and immediately freak out.  What if I make a mistake?  Can't I trace it first?  LOL  Thank goodness they encourage bringing your own wine to drink (see mine to the right of my canvas?).  It helps the creative juices flow.

I attended a Canvas Painting workshop recently - it lasted about 2 hours or so.  You probably have heard of these types of things before.  Sometimes you'll find them in a restaurant/bar area or in a studio like this one.  The Pottery Works in beautiful Lancaster City is where this one was held.  And Lindsay was our instructor!

So there we are...starring at our blank canvas.  The thing I absolutely loved about this class is they walk you through it step-by-step.  No artistic ability is needed - no really! 

step one

First we picked where on the canvas we wanted to start the sunset/sky.  We started with yellow then mixed yellow and red together to get the orange.  The red was last at the very top.

Step two & three

Next we made our setting sun.  I like how there was no real wrong way to do this.  It's whatever you see in your mind.  You just go with it.  I didn't like mine at first, but it grew on me.  While the setting sun and sky were drying we went ahead and did the black (ground).  This was the easy part, I couldn't really mess this part up.  HA!

Step four & five

OK, time to freak out again.  It was time to paint the elephant.  WHAT?!  I can't draw an elephant.  Oh but I could.  Once again their step-by-step instructions saved me.  And guess what?  I painted the elephant!  Next was the tree, which I painted with no real issues.

step six & finishing touches

I added some finishing touches to my tree then it was time to paint the baby elephant.  UGH here we go again.  But it wasn't so bad.  I finished it off with some plants and other touch ups; and of course my "ASA" at the top.

I gotta say that this was a really great experience.  I will definitely be going back to paint more pictures.  At the beginning of class they told us that no negativity was allowed.  You were not allowed to criticize your painting (I have to say this was hard not to do - it's just human nature I think to be your own worst critic).

Have you ever done one of these classes before?  Share your story!

This is not a sponsored post by The Pottery Works.  I used my own money to pay for the class and all thoughts and opinions are my own.