[art] My first painting!

I took last Friday off work and went to a Joy of Painting class taught by a certified Bob Ross instructor. It was amazing. SOOOOO much fun! The instructor came with a finished painting that she had done and we used that as a basis for our own paintings. She did another painting as she told us what to do (use a 1" brush, hold it like this, use this color, tap tap tap tap like so, etc.).

Here's the canvas that everyone started with:

Our brushes and oil paint:

All the brushes and paints are Bob Ross brand. And my little easel had Bob Ross on it:

The first thing we painted was sky:

Clouds came next, which was kind of difficult. Then mixing black and green to tap a background for all our trees and bushes:

We used green mixed with yellow to tap on highlights to the trees and hill in the foreground:

Here's I've added some reds and browns. Painted on some branches. Added little waterfalls.

Those really thin, white branches and trees you see into background? That's just taking the tip of the knife and scraping away thin lines of paint. That's the canvas showing through. Isn't that cool?!

Finally, we added some land/coastline, rocks and water froth:

That's the finished painting. I'm not so pleased with my rocks, but overall I'm so in love with this. My first painting and I think I did an awesome job.

The class is at Mascoma Bank. I was the only noob at this class- the bank has been holding these classes for something like 10 years and everyone had been before. I wish I could have taken a picture of everyone's paintings- we were all doing the same painting, fundamentally, but every painting was different. Everyone's clouds looked different, people used different colors for their bushes, people placed their waterfalls in different locations. It was really neat to see all the paintings.

I took the class on Friday and they were holding another one with the same instructor on Saturday. I simply assumed that it would be the same painting, but no- the painting will be different. So you could sign up for both days and do different paintings (which some of the students were doing). At the end of my class, there was a drawing for the finished painting that the instructor was doing the next day- AND I WON. I won the painting that she was doing on Saturday, which is a totally different scene. This TOTALLY makes up for not winning MegaMillions, I swear. I have to wait 7 days or so for the paint to dry, then I can pick up the painting at a Mascoma Bank branch office. I can't wait to see it!