Stars and Stripes Forever

At the beginning of the summer, I was a little nervous about my 40 blog--I have just a couple months left until my next birthday, and am only a little over half-way through my list!  But as it turns out, New Things To Do seem to find me, even when I'm not looking.  This week, my pals Cathy Shelton and Michaelann Stanley brought a Newness to me!

Cathy seems to be always trying new things to do--gardening, baking, painting, redoing floors and walls in her home, etc.; she's fearless when it comes to new projects.  So this week, she said, "Come to a painting class with me!  It'll be fun!"  Oof.  I recognize lovelies when I see them, but I am not, in general, prone to creating them myself.  Hm.  But whatevs!  Have never painted a painting outside of Vacation Bible School, so I'm game!

On the square in Benton, there's a store called The Wild Trillium that sells local artists' products--clothing, paintings, crafts, jewelry, and so on, and from time to time, the lady who runs the store offers painting classes!  She provides everything--canvases, brushes, paint, aprons, the ideas, and the techniques, and we are to bring $35 and a willing spirit.  Just FYI, it's also permissible to bring an adult beverage and snacks to make the evening even more pleasant.  Sold!  Sounds like a plan!  Here she is . . .

Well, if a blank canvas is not intimidating, I don't know what is.  I've actually never sat in front of one that I was in charge of filling, and now the phrase "blank canvas" is going to have a whole new image for me!  So Sharon, our instructor, distributed our supplies, and . . .

our theme was Freedom! or maybe The Fourth of July! or 'Merica!  But these paints let us know we'd be getting in touch with our inner patriots and creating an interpretation of the American flag.  The first step:  paint the canvas red.  Easy enough!

The paints we were using were acrylic--Sharon the Instructor told us that this kind of paint will come off our skin and hair in a couple of days and out of our clothes never.  Pretty happy to have the apron, then, just in case, but as it happened, I was a fairly neat painter and didn't get any on the apron--although Murphy's Law would have it that if I didn't have the apron, I would have up-ended that plate of paint all over my lap.  The second step:  paint the field of blue . . .

She told us not to be "too neat."  Ugh.  "Don't be creating sharp lines around your blue field, ladies," she told us.  "Your blue should have raggedy edges."  Really?  This lady does not know how I roll, as I had already made my very neat horizontal and vertical lines and was carefully painting inside those lines.  Those raggedy edges you see here were added after the fact, and only on her instructions to do so.  Because as much as I like things neat, I also am a rule follower.  So raggedy it would be.  Next, we add the flying stripes--not straight lines, mind you, but flowy lines that suggest a flag flying in the wind.  Here's my attempt . . . note the fear in the eyes . . .

The hardest part, I've learned, is that moment after you've loaded your paintbrush, and it's time to do something creative, but the product you have up to this point is pretty good, and adding the flowy, no-boundaries-have-fun-and-do-your-thing element might MESS EVERYTHING UP.  Oy.  I had that white paint on my brush for a good two minutes before I picked a place and started making my zigs and zags.  But I'm pretty pleased with my flowing lines.  I think they evoke the movement pretty well, considering I am in no way an art-teest with practice in this area . . . .  Toot!  (That was my horn.)

Next were the stars!  Again, we are making sort of impressions of flags, not the real deal, so the stars were NOT to be five-pointed.  Hm.  Okay.  How to make stars??  These are my attempt--they might look star-like, but what you're seeing here are my list bullets--I put these in front of my to-do list items for every list I ever make, so I've done these maybe a gazillion times in my life.  They felt easy, so I went with them.  :-)  Now next, she told us to "throw some blue" around our stripes, and then, she says, breezily, "toss the word FREEDOM onto the field!  It'll look great!"  Gulp.  WRITE on it??  But . . . but I haven't made any awful mistakes on it . . . and you're asking us to FREEHAND our handwriting??  Oy.  Okay.  Here we go.

Ta-da!!  Mrs. Tow's second grade Palmer Method cursive lessons in full force right there.  Didn't mess it up!  Well, not too badly, anyway.  And here's my final product!

And here's a pic of all of us there that night!  It really was a lot of fun, and life lessons abound in a painting class, as it turns out.  One cannot be too afraid of getting outside the lines.  Any mistakes can be either embraced or corrected.  Sometimes it's better not to think too hard about adding elements to your plan.  Hm.  Painting as therapy should really be considered . . . .  These classes are offered in her shop every Wednesday, just in case you're interested.  Her shop can be found on Facebook, and you can sign up for whichever one strikes your fancy!  If you want company, I'm definitely game to do it again!!