It begins at Paint Night

As my birthday approached, the list of things we needed to accomplish before we turned 40 grew.   At the same time, my super awesome friend Bree booked a top secret birthday thing for me and invited Julie to come along.

Little did I know it was one of the things on the top of our list-Paint Night.

As we sat in front of our blank canvasses wondering how on Earth we were going to duplicate the painting at the front of the room, we were handed aprons and brushes.

Then the painting fun began.  The instructor was fabulous at taking us step by step through our painting experience, explaining why we were doing what we were doing, and how it was going to work in our painting.

There were a lot of laughs as we all fumbled our way through the steps, but even if we ended up with something that looked like it was painted by a second grader, we were going to love it.

For Julie and I, it was our first experience with paint, which is why going to a Paint Night event was on our baby list.  We don't expect to become master artists, but to have a few pieces of art that we created that symbolize our adventure is priceless.

The silly comments people made as they got to know each other a little bit from the other side of the canvas were hilarious.  The guy on the other side of my canvas was hysterical.

As our paintings began to take shape, we all branched off from the instructions just a little bit on our own as we got more comfortable with a brush in our hands.

Not one person freaked out that they hated the work they were doing.  The instructor wandered the room between each step looking at paintings, answering questions, and helping with technique.  As you can see from my masterpiece, I needed as much help as I could get.

Then we stood before our finished pieces, both impressed with ourselves, and slightly addicted to painting.

One of the best parts of the night was wandering around and looking at everyone else's works of art.  Some were exactly like the instructor's painting, and some went so far off the reservation that they were complete original masterpieces.  Some were so advanced that we wondered why they would spend their time at a Paint Night with a bunch of amateurs.  Then I remembered, oh yeah, because it was hilarious.

We not only walked away with a beautiful painting that can hang in our homes and forever remind us of this amazing night, but we got to check something off of the baby list, which made us feel accomplished, and we gained a special kind of confidence.

Now when I look at a painting or a project that I might be interested in doing, I'm not going to hesitate to try.  Thank you so much Paint Night for being the very first thing to get checked off of our mid life crisis baby list,  and thank you Bree, for unknowingly knowing that this was on the list.  I hope that we can revisit this night again!

Paint Night is hosted by restaurants all over Portland.  To learn more and find out what paintings are coming up, you can find them at paintnight.com.

-Sunshine O'Connor