Painting + Drinking

For Mother's Day, me and my sis went in on a gift for my mom that I thought was pretty freakin' awesome. I would have shared it with you guys in my Mother's Day Gift Ideas post, but since my mom reads all my posts, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise for her!

She had been dying to go to one of those drinking and painting places. So, we decided to go half-sies on a mommy + daughter(s) date to Painting With A Twist.

I thought it was the perfect gift idea because:

A. My mom is an artist. Not profesh, but she can totally draw the hell out of whatever is in her face. She's pretty amazing at drawing, painting, etc. She even painted the "crash" or "breakthrough" signs for our HS football guys to run through for both my HS and my sister's HS while we cheered.

B. Its BYOB. Nough said. Count me in.

C. What better gift to give mom than time to hang out with her daughters? 

D. It looks like fun! Plus, I want to paint some BEAUTIFUL shizz.

There is only one problem...I don't have an artistic bone in my body.

My sister hogged that gene, along with the skinny gene in our family. Thanks a lot, Brit.

Meanwhile, I got the big boobs gene (score!) but that also means the saggy-titty gene accompanies it (boooooooooooooooooooooooo-b) and the fat gene. I definitely got the genes no one pretty much wants.

SO, on the day of this whole painting thing I tried my best not to get nervous.

I know, I know... it's supposed to be fun.

Yada, yada, yada.

But I knew we'd have to take a photo at then end and show our "masterpiece," just like I'd seen many people do on Facebook over 100 times. And let's face it, no matter how much I Da'Vinci-ed my painting, it'd still look like a little girl with pigtails was playing around with paint next to those two.

They may be able to make some beautiful pieces of art, but you give me a paint brush and a wall and I can go to town on that bad boy. ;)

Seriously, though, I can barely do that.

Don't ask me to draw anything.

Don't ask me to paint anything.

Don't ask me to color anything.

Because I pretty much suck at it.

In 4th grade, I was so upset when I had ugly handwriting in school that I'd come home crying because it was so bad. And, I wasn't the gal who could doodle those fancy bubble letters either. I had to get my friend Steph @ Signing Steph to tackle those "doodling" tasks for my paper book covers in 7th grade. Yeah, you remember those. You probably made cute little bubble letters of you and your BF's initials. Except I'd get Steph to do it or some other artistically-inclined person to try, sometimes I'd even make Mom do it.

Needless to say, I was a bit worried about how this painting thing would go down.

Here we are pre-painting sesh. Full of make up and hair is still pretty and in tact.

We got to the place and were the first ones to arrive. And we Britney picked the middle table so we could see the "teacher" the best. Except now, I was going to have people behind me who could sneak a peek at my painting, point, laugh and whisper to each other about how bad that blonde girl is.

Do you see how my mind works!?

Britney picked a painting with peacock feathers because she thought it looked cool. I wanted to do a portrait of the Eiffel Tower, because it had a bunch of line-like "X's" that looked pretty damn easy. But we went with the peacock tree.

We started off with the background which seemed easy enough. Everyone's background looked better than mine, but I think that everyone said that as they painted streaks of blues and greens. We are all so critical of ourselves.

Britney was playing the DD that night, so me and mom could drink away. I had an apple cider "ale" and since I don't drink often, I was already feeling a little tipsy. Maybe it was the drink or my nerves or maybe both... who knows?

I started to get serious, determine mine wouldn't be the laughing stock of the entire classs.

The more serious and stressed I was, the more I needed to drink. Mom opened me up a mini wine bottle and Britney encouraged me to chug it so I'd loosen up.

I don't know if the person who thought of painting and drinking is a genius or an idiot.

I'm gonna say it's probably a mix of both. Having a bunch of people (mainly women) in the room, drinking and painting with nice clothes on isn't probably the best idea. Especially because women are the most competitive creatures on the planet.

Plus if I would have downed a few more, I probably would have been rolling around in the paint on the floor. But thankfully, I stopped after the wine.

By the time we got to the feathers, the drinks were taking it's toll on me. But instead of loosening me up, I started to get sleepy.

I tried to concentrate on the feathers, but they weren't coming out very good. Everything ran together. And I hated the colors they gave us, so I started mixing and making my own.

LET ME JUST ASK THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM...

Whose idea was it to paint peacock feathers on a damn tree?

I mean feathers are just too damn hard. Couldn't we have stuck to cherries or leaves or something? But feathers? Everyone hated the feathers.

Literally I was surrounded by this chatter from my fellow painters:

"My feathers look like fish."
"These feathers are horrible."
"Oh, yours is much better than mine."
"I hate these feathers."
"How did you do the feathers again?"

Meanwhile, I'm really in to the painting. I'm totally zoned out trying to beautify those damn peacock feathers. I was going to make those fish-eyed looking feathers gorgeous.

This is how I thought I was painting and how it really turned out.

By the end of the painting sesh, I was tired and kind of over it. There was no time for me to perfect my artwork, if you can call it that. I finished my final feather and threw my hands in the air. Over it.

As I peeked at others' and their artwork nearby, I was surprised to learn my art skills were more 4th grade level rather than kindergarten. FIST PUMP!

Just glad we didn't have to do a presentation at the end or something because I would have had to explain why my feathers are so damn dramatic.

This was a lot of fun, and I will definitely do another one.

Next time though, no feathers.

How are your art skills?

I hope yours are better than mine.