Paint Like Matisse {HappyMess}

What have I done recently?

Not a lot. Mostly sleeping. Two separate trips to the Doctor in a Box. Major antibiotics. Two rounds of cough medicine. 

I thought it was allergies or a cold. Nope, when I went to the Dr. after 5 days (too long?) the doctor said my lower left lung sounded like crackling paper. It was either bronchitis OR pneumonia. But the treatment was the same...a major antibiotic. (And boy am I thankful for pharmaceuticals).

I missed 4 days of work!! I was in bed for 6 days!! Back to work last Tuesday. Too weak to drive. {Have I mentioned that I have an amazingly wonderful husband?}. 

Today marks one week back to work AND the first day I felt clear-headed enough to drive.

Two of my girlfriends and I had made reservations at a local BYOB Painting Class. I've never been to this one before. It's called HappyMess. It has a really cool atmosphere. It's in a converted old house in the funky neighborhood near downtown. 

I went...though I was not very energetic. I couldn't handle anything stronger than lemonade. Thank goodness for lemonade. 

My two friends had not done the BYOB type class before. It was so much fun to go to this class with them. Beth asked me how to compare this class to my other BYOB painting classes. My answer:  This is MUCH HARDER.

We set out to "Paint like Matisse". 

The teacher that taught us was a recent Art Major graduate from Minnesota. Her look reminded me of Penny from The Big Bang Theory. She was very supportive. Her teaching style was all about starting and building the picture color by color. We started with yellow. 

We mixed our own colors. So our oranges and pinks and greens are all different hues. The photo that they took was a low-quality iPhone pic. --So I don't have much to work with to show you our masterpieces. But, I've given you a glimpse here:

I love the pieces that my friends completed. I think Beth's (with a large amount of orange) is most like Matisse's piece. I wish I had a more clear pic of Tracy's pic.

Interestingly, my picture doesn't really look at all like Matisse's. It's much more minimalistic. Looking at this makes me want to do a "do-over".  But I gotta tell you...even though I'm not good at achieving precision paintings (typically), going for an impressionistic piece is not at all natural to me.

We met a fourth friend for dinner after our masterpieces were finished. We showed her our work and she was so fun! She kept saying, "I don't understand why the pictures look so different."

Well...I think my picture should be taken out of the equation...because became infatuated with yellow.

Anyway, I love spending time with my friends. I'm so lucky to have such good ones!!