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.

Fall is upon us!

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OK...seriously!!!  It's October ALREADY?  This can not be.  I blinked and summer was over.  :::sad face:::  Where I live, it wasn't very "hot" this summer, so it really feels like we didn't have one.  We had a lot of rain.  blah.  But here we are.  And I've been missing from my blog for almost a month!  A lot has happened so I thought I would catch you up with some words and pictures.  :)

So excited to attend Bloggy Bootcamp in Philadelphia!

On September 5 & 6th I was very excited to attend the Women Get Social / Bloggy Bootcamp!  I learned a lot and met tons of fellow bloggers!  What a weekend!  My brain is still swimming with all the information they gave us.

Penn's Landing - Philadelphia PA

After Bloggy Bootcamp, hubby picked me up and we stayed in the city for the evening.  Walked around Penn's Landing and had dinner on the Moshulu boat pictured above.  We had a wonderful time!

Beautiful Cape May NJ

Then hubby and I took a long weekend trip to Cape May, NJ.  We love this little sea-side town!  And I got to be near my therapist (AKA:  the ocean).  There is so much history in this little Victorian town.  I highly recommend reading the book "Historic Cape May New Jersey, The summer city by the sea" by Emil R. Salvini.  Wonderfully written and very informative.

boardwalk fun!!

And I can not go to the Jersey Shore with out visiting the boardwalk where I grew up going to!  Ocean City!  Lots of fun things to do there!  And it is a wonderful family oriented place.

My Heather-Feather and me!

The following weekend, my baby-girl moved out on her own!  I am sad and happy for her all at the same time.  Here we are sharing breakfast together a week after she moved out.  HA!

Beautiful farm land & tree colors around our development

It seems as though the color changes are happening so quick.  Every time I look at the trees they are more and more changed.

My project

Then comes some home improvement time.  My weekend project was painting the front door.  The old color is on the left, new color on the right.  It looks fabulous!

Such an improvement!

While I was painting the door, hubby and a friend were taking the shutters off our house and painting them.  That is no joke!  Up the ladder to take them off, down the ladder to paint, let dry, climb back up the ladder to put them back on.  Glad it wasn't me.  LOL

Old color on top, new color on the bottom

BOOM!  There's the finished project!  YAY!

Then we followed that up with fall decorating this weekend.  I love fall, but I do not like what it brings.....old man winter.  YUCK!  But we had fun decorating the front porch.

We had fun picking out our decorations

Pretty colors!

LOVE the outside orange lights

So while I feel bad for neglecting my blog over the past month, I had fun being busy doing family stuff. I am back and my goal for October is to get back to writing 2-3 times a week. 

What have YOU been up to?  Did you decorate for fall?  Tell me in the comments!

Do you have hidden artistic talents?

For me, I think I do.  I mean I have so many things rolling around inside my head all the time.  I like to write.  I've been wanting to write a book for a long time!  So I started this blog and hardly use it.  :(  I think it about too hard then I get frustrated and just stop thinking about it.

I like to paint - either free hand or paint-by-numbers.  LOL  Yep, did those as a young kid!  Still like to do them.  I like to pencil draw/doodle.  So I get myself a sketch pad and pencils.  I drew a picture of Jesus.  I started drawing other objects.  Mostly just doodling.  Then I set it aside and Hubby gets irritated with it just sitting there.  HAHA! 

I don't know how to take these things in my head and put them to use.  I guess not giving up would be the first thing.  Just keep practicing.  I feel I have something deep down inside me, just need to figure out how to pull it out.

How do you bring out your artistic talents?