Van Gogh I Am Not

I’ve always wished that I was an artist. As a kid, I had the drive and desire but not the talent. My mom is the artist and has spent pretty much her whole life doing it as her career. It took a backseat to raising my brother and I but once we were in high-school she was able to spend more time on it. In fact, when I moved out at 19 my mom converted my childhood bedroom to her art studio.

Sadly, I did not inherit her talent. My creative juices flow more easily with words. Despite that I decided to give painting another try. Just for fun. I bought a Groupon for The Loaded Brush; it’s a studio here in Portland where you BYOB (whatever you choose to drink) and some snacks and they provide all the supplies and instruction on how to create your masterpiece. Their calender is posted each month with the painting for that evening and we signed up for the Van Gogh Starry Night.

I went in with zero expectations and just the desire to hang out with friends and do something fun.

Michael and I had a very light dinner after work and then went to the class with a small cooler packed with (gluten-free) crackers, salami, smoked Gouda cheese and a bottle of red.

Gouda is my favorite cheese ever! Second would be goat cheese. We opened the bottle of Bogle Merlot that was a Christmas gift and settled in for our class. They provided glasses and aprons/shirts. We channeled our inner-Bob Ross and got ready.

We met our friends Ember and her boyfriend Craig at the class. It was nice to see them; we hadn’t really hung out since last summer. They got busy buying a house and getting a puppy and I am just always busy. Always.

The class was packed and we were instructed to get our paint; he explained the techniques and brushes and we got started.

The instructor/owner, Aaron, was AWESOME. It was like a stand-up comedy act in combination with art lesson. He explained how to do things step by step and gave everyone time to kind of stretch their creative muscles. There was no judgment attached, it was just fun.

I felt encouraged and tried my best, even though I knew it wasn’t really my strength. We went with our friends Ember and Craig with the intention of hanging out and catching up but we were all so focused on our painting that we didn’t talk much!

We started with the yellow base and worked from there. It was sort of like paint by numbers, where the instructor would give instruction on what color to use, how to mix the colors and what brushes to use. It was very helpful.

The instructor explained that with impressionist paintings like this we shouldn’t expect to like what we see up close, but that once it was done and we stepped back, it would look better. It was definitely hard to SEE anything good while I was in the middle of it.

There was also the cutest dog there! His name was Bob Marley and he was sweet and lovable and hilarious. Bob loved to bite down on peoples aprons or shirts and then shake his head and pull. Too cute.

Bob Marley found his favorite spot by Michael’s feet and took a nap. Michael and I shared the bottle of wine and ate (too much) cheese with salami and painted our masterpieces. The finished product wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be:

I ended up buying the $20 frame because the frame really did make it look pretty darn good. I plan on giving it my artist mom for Mother’s Day. 🙂

It was such a blast! I had a great time. It was fun, inspiring, and it made me want to try again. Michael felt the same way. While we’d gone in with lackluster feelings and no expectations because neither of us have artistic talent, we both left feeling like it was a fantastic experience. If you’re in the Portland area this is a GREAT idea for a date night, or a girl’s night out, whatever! There were also people there alone and they had just as much fun. Everyone became friends by the end of the class.

QUESTION: Do you have artistic talent?