So, A Writer Walks Into a (Paint) Bar...

Today I went to a paint bar. Before you start to think I have illusions of grandeur about my artistic talents, let's clarify that this wasn't my choice. I don't know whose idea it was, but this was a part of the office Christmas party to celebrate a holiday season of hard work. I came for the sandwiches and chips. It would have been rude to then blow off the paint bar. Now that I've written an extraneous disclaimer I feel I can move on.

This post is going to have pictures in it. People like pictures. So prepare to like this post. It's going to be great.

So we get to the paint bar and I'm just super skeptical. I don't know that I've ever painted before in my life. I like the keep my creativity to the realm where I can hit CTRL+Z if I screw things up. So we walk into the paint bar and as I walk among the collection of clean canvases and paint splattered table my apprehension only grows. I make sure to claim a seat where my canvas is facing away from everyone. The class has a few minutes before it starts so I stand up to walk around and explore a little bit. Then I see it. "Kurt Vonnegut." Up near the ceiling is written the name of the guy I want to be when I grow up. I notice that the name is attached to a quote: "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow." I still didn't particularly want to spend my aftenoon painting badly, but I couldn't help but think "Well, if Kurt Vonnegut says so..."

It's a selfie. Look at me fitting in with my generation. Go Millennials!

I began painting. I didn't really understand most of what was going on, but I found that if I just pretended my brush was a broom and I was trying to clean off the canvas things went pretty well. At one point I spent about 5 minutes just blending the yellow paint onto the white because I hadn't been given any other instructions yet and and I wanted to look busy. "Blending can be really fun," the instructor said, "and sometimes it can be hard to know when to stop. Because it's so fun." I took the hint. I only blended a little bit more and then stared out the window waiting for further instructions.

At this point I was considering just calling it finished. I would name this piece Snow Corpses Observing Nightmare Trees

Somewhere in between blending the blue of the sky into the red of the sunset and painting those trees I began to believe I had mastered painting. The instructor said to make the trees so they would have "personality." Holy crap, look at all the personality! I'm considering quitting my job and becoming a full time tree painter. The instructor described the leaf things on the trees as "little mustaches" and I was so on board for painting mustaches that I just went nuts on those trees.

I presented Jenny with the final product because I'm the king of romance.

After putting on all the fine details and letting the paint dry we all headed back to the office. My dear wife hadn't been able to come because she had to do work stuff, which was kind of lame. I gave her my painting to decorate her office with. Not too bad if I say so myself. I'm probably the next great artist of this generation. You should offer to buy this piece from my wife before I blow up and all my paintings cost millions of dollars.

So, that's what I did today. Did you like that? Three whole pictures! This post was just decadent. If you enjoyed all this decadence you should definitely check in for tomorrow's post. The current plan is to use tomorrow to write about how my experience with Magic: The Gathering has been. I'm not guaranteeing that's what will happen, but it's what I'm thinking about. Anyway, that's another day done and I'm still feeling pretty good about writing more frequently. It just feels good. Also, I'm seeing that these posts are getting views. If you're reading this drop me a comment just so I have an idea of who my audience is. If you'd rather not that's cool too. You're free to keep your mystique, my mystery reader. Anyway, until tomorrow here's me, the world's best painter, signing off.