Painting isn’t exactly a talent of mine. When I was a teenager, I was painting the border around the top of my room.

I was stupidly standing on a folding chair, and the chair buckled out from underneath me. I spilled bright blue paint all over the carpet and the wall.

Since then, I’ve successfully painted a few bedrooms and our mail box, but I never attempted to paint a picture. Until my daughter-in-law Alle booked a birthday painting party for Ingrid, our eldest son’s wife.

One daughter-in-law couldn’t make it, so there were only four of us there – Alle, Ingrid, me and another girl, Lily. Her boyfriend didn’t want to come so she came alone.

We immediately asked her to join us. We had plenty of snacks and wine, but she declined. She did, however, join our conversation throughout the night.

The instructor, Professor Moonshine – I’m not making that up – had a painting we could use as a reference. He said he’d lead us through creating the painting step by step, but we were free to experiment.

The first part was easy – a blue-and-white background.  I painted blue and then white, and my canvas resembled the one on the easel.

He said we could add some extra colors to the background, so I got a little bold and added some purple to my blue and white. It looked okay.

Then it was time to add green leaves.

Mine were awful. They were too wide with no definition, but the professor said I could cover them up during the next step, adding small flowers.

This advice was familiar – I know how to cover my rear end and double chin – long tunics and scarves. Those leaves would soon be history.

I couldn’t get the hang of the five-stemmed flowers. Moonshine showed me and I still couldn’t do it. I settled for flowers that had a Monet quality – a little out of focus.

There was supposed to be a big peony on the right-hand side. I tried but I couldn’t get it right.

I looked at my daughters-in-law’s paintings. They painted their big flower perfectly. Their shading was spot on. Mine looked like a giant blob of pink on one side of the canvas.

I didn’t think it was possible to camouflage the leaves and this big flower. I settled for swirling some white over the pink. Okay, a lot of white.

Then we were supposed to add tall, thin flower stems. These I knew how to do – dab, dab, dab. I walked over and looked at Lily’s. She’d added orange to her painting, a color not on the tray Moonshine prepared for us.

She said I could borrow her idea. I added some light orange dabs and a little white to the purple – I could not resist that purple puddle on the plate – and the picture started to take shape.

Finally it was time to add a few final touches. By this time, I was feeling a little adventurous. I put a yellow dot first and then small black dots on the centers of the flowers, just like I’d seen in my yard.

Was my picture perfect?

Not by a long shot.

Did I have a blast?

Absolutely.

Mostly it was the joyous company of my daughters-in-law. There was also a freedom after I let go, freedom that comes from creating something you never dreamed you had inside you.

I texted a picture of the painting to my brother, Jeff, an extremely talented artist and writer. I pointed out most of my mistakes. His reply was what I needed to hear:  “Chasing joy leads to much better results than tracking errors.”

He’s absolutely right.

Every time I look at my first painting, I’ll remember what a fun idea Alle had to honor Ingrid and realize, our pictures, just like the evening, were perfect.

 

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.