So back last March Lisa and I went to paint at the Wine and Easel. My first trip was pretty fun and I have the coffee cup hanging in my kitchen.
I had bought a groupon type deal for another trip and decided to book it before it expired (in March). I kept looking at the calendar and waiting to see one I liked, and I saw this one and fell in love with it. I just thought it was pretty and I have taken this photo from their website, so any credit of the picture is not mine, it’s owned by them. Go to http://www.wineandeasel.com/ and check the Feb calendar to see it (or others you could try to paint too).
It was my wedding anniversary day, but I had a groupon to use and my friend Leslie said she’d go too. Then she didn’t go, so my mom was in town and she wanted to go paint. I found a coupon and reserved her spot and we headed into Franklin to paint.
Oh did we paint.
When we got there it’s a mostly blank canvas with some paint on a plate underneath. Not too bad and the crosses were on there (though, one of mine was outlined very strangely). The first thing we did was use black and outline the crosses.
After that we painted the clouds. I was ok with the clouds, until I realized a few things.
- I totally painted over one cross. Everyone did but still… it’s hard to freehand a cross. Well for me it is.
- My blue “peek through” clouds look like stars, blimps, possibly Africa, but not really like blue sky.
- The original colors were a grey and not brown clouds. I haven’t seen brown clouds before, but these are the colors he was telling us to paint. Not as dark though, I was failing on my clouds, it seems.
I wish that I had taken another during photo, I really do. The godlights were not too bad, but I was getting frustrated by the end. The instructor was really trying to hurry us along. I asked if we could make the clouds more grey and not brown and so that’s why two sections of the top are darker. Sadly, the weird brown on each side is what he was calling a “brown wash” or something. It was supposed to be a light very watery brown that’s just barely on. Well, memo to newbie over here – that is not faint.
My third cross was just freestyled in and sadly I like it the best. Do you like the ground hills? No? Look like a kid did it? Again, I was spent and over it. I see the merit in some of this but all in all I was very disappointed.
Now here’s my painting and my mom’s painting is on the right. I like her crosses and her ground better. I like my God lights and left top dark cloud. I don’t like either of the clouds anywhere else. Check her cross’ shading though, I have to admit that if I could have somehow merged these and got new clouds I’d have been happy. That’s not an option.
Oh and here’s the one we were looking at as a sample from a previous day and mine. Wait, which one is which? SO kidding. My crosses look super fat, but that’s the only way I could get them to look even. Sadly we left the paintings there. I didn’t want to have to throw it away at home and didn’t want my hubby to laugh at me. I wish I had kept it but more as a joke and a testament to my non-painting ability.
Laugh if you will – he said that they’ve considered putting a warning out there because this is one of the most difficult paintings. Um, that would have been great info because my coffee cup wasn’t too bad. I like my coffee cup, I hope one day I can look at crosses and lights shining on them without remembering this experience. Seriously.
Until then I think I’ll stick to the artistic ability I have when it comes to frosting cakes. Oh wait, I haven’t shown you Cheech’s Monster High cookie cake yet. I free-handed a skull and it looks like a strange blob. Kirby was an easier to do blob. Photos up soon as I can for those. 
I have bought this deal twice – I love printing with Vistaprint. In fact I’m waiting on my new business cards to take with me to Blissdom (HURRY UP!)
