Friday, December 6, 2019

My First Masterpiece!!!

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to draw.  I was jealous of anyone who could paint.  Every time Bob Ross was on TV painting those gorgeous landscapes, I watched in awe, knowing I was never going to be able to do that.  He made it look so easy!!

So when my friend from my college Photography Class posted her paintings on Facebook, I became the same obsessed kid I was in grammar school.  I never in a million years figured I could do something like that, mostly because I live in a tiny farming community full of thieves and druggies.  Yes I did check out classes at the college, but their schedule never meshed with mine.

When Renate said to come to her class, I jumped on board!!  Are you sure they don't mind?  I've never done this before.  No problem she said.

I got to class with all my goodies and spread out across the table.  I have to say, there is an order of things.  I got it all wrong.  Eventually, I'm sure I will organize my workspace better.

I learned all about paper and how to tear it in pieces to get the required rough edge.  It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.  I can't even explain how it's done.  

Next up I spent about 60 minutes putting paint in my pallet box.  There is an order to that also.  In no time, I had paint all over my fingers.  At last, she said "what do you want to paint?"  I looked through my phone and showed her a couple of my photographs.  Okay ..... let's start with Mary's coffee cup.

Ummmmm not these pretty flowers?  Seriously, she put the cup in front of me and said ... draw it.  Talk about pressure!!!  I drew the cup on a piece of old dirty paper, donated by my friend Renate, who then showed me her style of painting.  There's a "style"??  Believe it or not, everyone paints in completely different ways.   

You can see at the top ... the H looking thing ... where I tried her style and LOVED it!!  Okay then!!  By that time, the big hand was on twelve, followed quickly by the little hand.  Time to go.  I loaded up all my stuff, leaving my newly acquired watercolor paper on the back counter.  
Once home, I figured I would redraw my cup and paint it in magnificent brush strokes.  Alas, I had no paper other than the piece Renate gave me.  I made several frantic phone calls, finding everyone out to lunch.

So here it is in all it's glory, my very first watercolor coffee cup, painted on dirty paper with an H across the top.  Don't laugh, it's a work in progress!  I actually had to look on the internet to determine how to make gray for the shadow, since that's not a color I had.  Once you paint a little, you cannot add other colors until the paper dries.  So every painting takes several days, if not weeks, to complete.  

The next thing I knew, I had chunks of paint all over the back of my hand.  Where did THAT come from?  Then I stuck my pinkie finger in the red!  Well for heaven's sake.  Now it's all over my shirt and jeans!!  AND THE COUNTER!!  I spent an hour cleaning up before getting back to my cup.

It's a good thing I didn't pay a fortune for art classes.  Hey, it's a start!!  At any rate, my homework this week is to draw something to paint NEXT week.  I looked through all my pictures and decided they were too complicated for a beginner.  Maybe I'll paint a glass of water this time!!

In the meantime, I finally contacted the church where we met and picked up my paper.  Here's another secret I learned.  You can TRACE your picture onto the paper instead of drawing it.  Okay then ..... I got this!!!!

Hopefully I'll figure out WHAT to paint before next week.  In the meantime, I wonder what I can use to get red paint out of my natural stone countertop.









14 comments:

  1. A Facebook friend grew up on a dairy farm in Central CA. He describes the small community the same way....thieves and druggies. I think your coffee cup painting is awesome. Keep it up. I look forward to seeing more paintings.

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    1. I'm not sure why that is ... the thieves and druggies ... but they are prevalent. A sad state of affairs.
      We shall see how my art career goes ..... LOL

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  2. Nice painting and hoping to see many more.
    Not sure what would take paint out of natural stone. Maybe start with Rubbing Alcohol if that doesn't harm the Counter Top but doesn't clean the Paint try the Toilet Bowl Cleaner. Acetone would work but could harm the stone. Try a small test spot before trying any of these.
    Be Safe and Enjoy your lessons.

    It's about time.

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    1. Silly me, I thought since it was water color that it would come off with water!

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  3. Try oxyclean. Nice cup. Also, Tom said to use your awning cane instead of your fingernails. Stay dry for the next 2 days. Then we had that yucky fog. Time to head to the coast. 😊

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    1. Thank you Barbara! I did use the awning cane twice, but my fingers worked better at the very top. Yeah we had fog too, but only for a day. The coast sounds GREAT!!

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  4. No advice about anything...sorry...:)
    I will say I like you cup painting. I even like the look of the "H". I would have no idea how to start and would have panicked if anyone told me to draw a cup.

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    1. I didn't panic, but I did sort of walk away and delay it as long as I could! LOL

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  5. Magic Eraser?

    I also like your cup. It has shape. Mine would likely be flat.

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    1. Oh yeah ... magic eraser might work. My first lesson in painting was to make everything look three dimensional. Not an easy proposition.

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  6. Hey, a glass of water is HARRD. Good luck. Good job on the cup!

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    1. Worse than the cup? Uh oh!! I did find an image of a lighthouse I might try. Sounds better than water!

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  7. Oh, how much I would love to paint like Bob Ross...he made it look so easy and fun.

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    1. Aha ... I wasn't his only fan. Wasn't he fabulous? Would have been fun to take a class with him.

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