an evening of painting

when i heard that our town was getting a "wine and design" place, i was so excited! i had seen some of my friends who lived in charlotte or the raleigh/durham area post their pictures after they had been painting, and i am always looking for fun, crafty ways to spend time with my friends :) a couple of my friends from work and i were able to get together to paint last week, and it has definitely sparked some creative energy for me!

we chose a night that worked for all of us when they were featuring a painting that we felt we would want--although we have learned that if you can get enough people together, you can do a private party and choose the painting. as we were waiting for the class to start, we were checking out the other paintings on display and talking about which ones we'd like to do in the future. they also feature a promotional card where you can do 6 paintings and get the 7th one free--love stuff like that!

we started out with a 16x20 canvas and a paper plate palette of the colors we'd be using that night, along with three different sized brushes. our teacher (who worked as a elementary school art teacher by day) worked with us to build the colors in our background.

then we added the outline of the tree. i've done trees before, so i felt pretty comfortable here and they let us do this on our own. however, we did learn that for some of the more difficult paintings, they will sketch an outline for you to help with the process.

here's our row of trees, along with the completed painting and our teacher's work in progress up front. (see that boat in the upper corner? i want to do that one--love the colors and reflection in the water!)

my friends hard at work--brittany, hillary and lorena :)

listening carefully to the instructions from our teacher, melissa. they had some great music playing the background and we both knew all the words and enjoyed singing along :)

the owner, marlyn, was painting with us that night and stopped to take pictures of the class in progress. it is a simple set-up in the studio, but so much fun! you can bring your own snacks and drinks to enjoy during the class. (see the painting in the middle of that back wall, the tree in front of the sunset? we want to do that one, too!)

back to the painting--we added some more details and little tufts of grass...

lorena and i were in our element--we both love to paint and are creative (we're also pretty short and stood up most of the time with our left hands on our hips--so funny!)

and the finished product, after going back in and adding leaves, circles and dots, and some light "swirls" for fun

here's lorena's almost finished painting--her circles were smaller and more detailed with lots of layers--very kadinsky-esque.

hillary added some colorful swirls to her picture.

and brittany had a larger, more open tree--i love how we each had our own style with the same painting!

here are our completed projects--we are definitely going to try and make this a regular outing :)

for those of you in the area (and most anywhere in NC, SC, etc.), check out their website and facebook pages for more information about how to plan your own painting experience!