Starting With a Blank Canvas

–I interrupt Book Talk Tuesday to talk painting–although, if you think about it, painting and writing novels are very similar. Both start with a blank canvas and end up telling a unique story!–

Last Friday my lovely daughter and I had a fantastic evening out at Wine and Canvas. It’s a brilliant business that makes artists out of EVERYONE, along with offering a varied selection of food and drink for sale. This concept has become popular across our nation as several similar businesses have popped up. In the Twin Cities area alone, I’ve discovered five similar companies.

For one price, each attendee is provided with an apron, a blank canvas, a plate of paints, and several paintbrushes.

Then an instructor leads the students through a step-by-step process, much of which makes no sense at the time, but if you’re smart, you follow their lead. Our first step was to paint the background with blue and green. As you can see, each individual artist already has their own interpretation of the instruction. My daughter blended her colors in a smooth flow while I created crisscross patterns. (Oh, and that plate in between the canvases? That was filled with Honeycrisp apple slices and a creamy brown sugar apple dip. Oh my! it was die for!)

Once the background dried, then we got to work on the Eiffel Tower. The instructor led us line by line until we came up with this skeleton:

After the basic structure was built, all we had to do was fill it in, and ta da! we had completed our masterpieces! Out of 50+ attendees, no two pictures were alike, but they were all fabulous! (No, the bugs weren’t part of the process, I’m just hiding the innocent 🙂 )

It’s great fun, and I can’t wait to do it again!

Question: Have you ever participated in a similar class?