On Friday night, Liz (my D-I-L) and I decided to celebrate Mother’s Day by going to an art class. We took our lesson with a group of eight budding artists at the Grasby Art Studio. This is the first time I have ever painted a picture.

We started by choosing some colours and squirting them onto our “palette”. These paints are called acrylics. We spray the canvas with water . . .

and create a background of greens and stems.

Fill in the background flowers. For this, you need to use your imagination. I know they don’t look like flowers. Then we figure out where the tulips will go and choose what colours they will be. And so on, until I get to my final version. Here is Liz’s final version. Here are some of the other paintings in the class:

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. — Pablo Picasso

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. —Charles Bukowski

A picture is a poem without words. — Horace

Each of these paintings shows its own separate personality. I think this would be an excellent family activity. Have everyone paint their own picture and then collect them all and hang them on a feature wall.

In this kind of class, there is no right or wrong way to do this.  We learned a few techniques and there are many more to learn, but that is for another day.

At this point, I am simply happy to begin. I know this is not a “masterpiece” but I am impressed with myself and I want to try this again.

What do you think of my first attempt? Have you ever painted a picture? Would you like to try?