Picasso

A friend and I went to Wine & Canvas Saturday night.  The instructor went step-by-step through the painting, and it was really fun.  As we looked at the gazillion paintings on the walls, we were struck by how hard they looked.  We were doing one of the simplest paintings, and it. was. hard.  

I was reminded of two things:

1.  I don't particularly have any artistic ability, but I'm not all that bothered by that fact.

2.  I'm a bit obsessive, and, turns out, I'm not bothered by that either.  The instructor said we could put a couple black lines in with the green, and that not all the stems on top of the thumb had to match up with stems between the hands.

Um, yes they do.

I have a poster of a very similar Picasso hanging up in my house, and it's always bothered me that there are more dark stems between the hands than above them.  It doesn't make sense.  I can't explain why this bothers me when none of the elements in the painting particularly make sense, but there it is.

The instructor also said the flowers didn't need to be attached to a stem and the petals didn't need to be attached to the center of the flowers.  I was able to go with that for the most part, although I did have to add a stem to the far left flower.  I couldn't stand the blue flowers just sticking out there by itself with no support.

The place was packed Saturday night.  As I looked at the other paintings at the end of the evening, I was struck by how different the paintings were.  Some people made the background a very different color than the yellow/white/brown mix that the instructor used.  Some people put very different flowers on their stems.  Some people didn't want to go step-by-step and went their own way.  I loved seeing everybody's crazy--everyone's attempt to be their own person even in a setting in which we came to all paint the same thing.

I'll go again. Crazy loves company.  That's all I'm saying.