2018-02-24

9 years to present | 2018-02

Nine years ago...nine years...a great friend of mine sent me this picture.  It is a plant that serves as a commemoration of their anniversary.  He asked me to paint it and the original objective was to make his 2010 anniversary.  Well, what he doesn't know is it should show up at his house for his 2018 anniversary.  I know that math is only eight years, but his original request was late 2009.  My favorite part is he has no idea it's inbound via UPS as I typed this.
This painting, and another (requester knows who she is), have been on my mind for some time.  So for this picture, I thought I'd put myself in a "forced to paint it" scenario.  I bought a ticket to a Paint Nite via Groupon.  As an aside, if you haven't done a Paint Nite, I recommend it.  Regardless of the instructing artist, the venues are pretty cool and you leave with a painting.  Sweet.
So, I took a pic of the pic, took it to the event, and painted my own pic.  Not the first time I'd done that (read more here) but still a little awkward. 

The original picture from my Pedro (left) and about 2/3 of the way through (right).  I always forget to take better "in-progress" pics...which is annoying.

The finished painting.  Not as full as the photo, but I was pretty happy with it.  As I struggle with boldness, I was particularly happy with the bowl (was initially too faint) and the dark spots in the leafs.  Also liked the side leafs which don't have tangible connections to the plant. 

Funny enough, the roving photographer took a shot of the odd man out.  The painting for the evening was as butterfly (shown below).  I could feel the eyes on me and my temperature rising, but I got over it and it was a good exercise in going bold.  I did thank the instructor for letting me paint something off topic.  She was nice...said it was fun to watch me.  I just hope Pedro likes it.  Used Lyft to get there.

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