Monet? No way.

I really enjoy coloring. Still. At age 27. I don’t mind it at all when my Sunday School lesson calls for the kids to color because I’ll totally do it too.

Part of the reason I think coloring is so fun is because the hard part – the drawing – has already been done for you.

So why I signed up for a painting class is beyond me.

Nah, I did it because I thought it could be fun. It was a cool idea for a Christmas present – i.e. a good way to force someone else to go so I wouldn’t have to do it alone – therefore, guess what Rachel got from me this Christmas?!

You see, there’s this place in town called Sips N Strokes. It’s where you can go and paint something on a canvas and drink wine or beer while you do it! Genius, right? Because even if your painting sucks, you can get drunk and it will look fabulous!

Anyway, when the time came for Little Sister to cash in her Christmas IOU, we picked the night with the hardest painting to do out of the entire month. Not really, but it was a doozy – the Twin Spires and roses. You know, easy stuff!

As an admitted Type-A who is working on it – seriously, I am – I was nervous as hell until about an hour into it. What if I did something wrong? There are no erasers in painting. And the people around me were totally going to judge my work…

Wasn’t so wrong about that last one, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

So we went on a Thursday. And we were the youngest there, I’m pretty sure. Definitely Coug City, at least at our table. Oh, and only one dude. In the whole place. Brave soldier, that one.

We get our paint and our canvas and our brushes and whatnot and before we even get close to starting I get nervous. I tell the seemingly nice lady to my left that I’m Type-A so this is gonna be hard for me. I’m going to want to make it perfect.

“Oh that’s OK,” she said. “I’m really a free spirit so I don’t worry about what it’s going to look like.”

Good for you.

This place is all about helping out us beginners, so you go really slow. Almost painfully, which I love. Because it’s harder to mess up that way. Like, “put a dot here. Then here. Then here. Now connect them.” And you guys, I am so good at a) following directions and b) connect-the-dots.

And soon, I (and everyone else) had something that looked like this.

But not before I made my dots and connected them with my lines and Mrs. Free Spirit next to me looks at my painting and says “That’s crooked.”

Bitch. Free Spirit My Ass. Please don’t tell me how to paint. You are not Bob Ross. Or the teacher.

Anyways, then it was – make two triangles, paint them white and then paint the sky. Done and done and done.

Oh and add some clouds. Unfortunately I did not use this technique:

Rachel may have, though, because here’s her painting. Look at those happy clouds.

Then we painted with black and my Twin Spires got a little out of control. By that time, however, Free Spirit was already done with that step because she’s better than everyone and did it before the teacher even told us to. And turned her canvas upside down to dry and was taking her break about 10 minutes before the rest of us.

Good for you. You win.

Seriously, upside down? You’re different. We get it.

Not long after this she had a bit of trouble, though I’m not sure with what, because I was trying to ignore her.

Then she says “This is why I never paint architecture.”

OK. FIrst of all, then why are you here? Second of all: “Oh me neither, I usually stick to landscapes and portraits and my feelings. Shut up, lady.”

Anyway, we got a break while our paint dried before we moved on to the foliage portion of the evening. Some people just let their paint dry on its own. Others used the hairdryers on the walls. And others waved them around like crazy people.

Or maybe that picture’s from when the fight broke out…

Just kidding! Leaves and stems! For flowers!

Look at that concentration!

My leaves and stems looked like this:

Neither of ours looked like these:

Don’t overkill, Bob Ross says. Good advice. Free Spirit should have been made aware of that…because she’s going flower crazy over there. Ahead of the class, as usual. Winner!

Too many flowers. And they look like crap.

Our paintings didn’t though.

Here’s mine:

Beautiful!

And Rachel’s:

Amazing!

And, of course, the finished paintings and the look of pure joy on our faces because we didn’t do half bad!

However, think of how much better these could have looked if we’d enlisted the help of everyone’s friend and favorite expert painter, Bob Ross.

Apparently, he was just across the room from us the whole time!