The Artist in Me

You know, I think I took one art class in high school my freshman year. After that my schedule just got too full with other "stuff." I've always liked to do crafty stuff, though. I occasionally crosstitch and scrapbook, I tried to teach myself how to knit, and I've enjoyed the few times I've painted pottery. Now I'm in love with going to Sips-N-Strokes. The basic idea is that you sign up for a class with a painting you'd like to try, you bring your own beverage, and they provide the supplies and instruction. I'd been hearing about it from various friends for a couple of years now, but I finally went to my first class in March. It was the Woman on the Beach (yep, that's mine).

Now, my girl is a bit curvier than the example was, but I like her. I'm planning on giving this one to my grandparents, but I haven't got it in the mail yet.

Tonight I went to my second class. I've been having Spring Fever lately, and frankly my 1st graders have been driving me a bit batty. So on Thursday I remembered how relaxed and pleased I felt as I was painting back in March, so I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for another class. What's really great is that Sips-N-Strokes puts up a calendar for each location showing which paintings they will be doing. The one for today, Saturday, was an ocean scene that I really liked. (I am more than ready for our Memorial Day trip!) I have been in a "beachy" state of mind for a few weeks now, so I thought it would be a great one to paint.

One of the things that makes this so fun, is the other people in the class. Today there was a birthday party group there and also some other pairs. The birthday goers were hilarious! They kept commenting on their own or their friends work, telling each other to "take a sip before you stroke," and even teasing one friend about being the "teacher's pet." It was all in good fun, and they made me laugh out loud a couple of times with their comments.

It's also great to see your work come alive and know that you did it. I just love putting something on canvas or paper that comes out (mostly) how I thought it should. It's so easy to get absorbed in what you're doing and just forget about all the other stressfull stuff. When you're thinking about mixing just the right color or trying to make just the right waves or windows, you cannot be thinking about lesson plans or wild children or rude customers. What a relief! As the instructor said, it's supposed to be a stress-free environment, so you can't worry about if your painting is perfect or if it looks different from everyone else's. In fact, that's one of the cool things: getting to see everyone's paintings and noticing how different they all are - even when you're all painting the same thing!

Now I haven't just been sticking to acrylics these days. A few months ago I was randomly inspired to buy a sketchpad and some colored pencils. Then, of course, I didn't use them for quite a while. Well as I said, I've been feeling beachy lately, so a couple of weeks ago I picked up the paper and pencils and attempted to sketch out our Memorial Day beach setup. The past several years we have stayed at a house called Margaritaville, and it was just fantastic. Unfortunately this year we couldn't get that house so we will be staying a bit down the beach in two houses - Magnolia Hill and Dragon Fish. The best thing about this trip to the beach isn't where we stay, but the people we're with, so I decided to call my drawing "Some Beach, Somewhere" (ok, it's from a country song, but it fits). I decided that's my own personal theme for our trip, because it doesn't matter where we are really - as long as it's somewhere on a beach with our friends.