Painting with a Twist

A few weeks before we went to visit my parents, I got in touch with my new sis-in-law, Andrea, to see if she wanted to do something special with me for my mom's birthday. I'd seen so many blog posts about these painting classes where you go and someone instructs you on what to paint and how to paint and you leave with a work of art you created. Mom and I are very crafty sort of people so I knew it would be perfect for us. When I mentioned it to Andrea, she said that she'd always wanted to do a class like that, too! So, it was settled. We told Mom about it and sent her the link to Painting with a Twist, so she could pick which painting she wanted to do. Our choices were between a paisley painting and a Mardi Gras fleur de lis. Mom picked the paisley painting (I'm so glad, because I don't know what I would have done with a Mardi Gras painting!). Andrea and my brother, Josh, came in the same weekend Eli and I did so we could have our girls day at the painting studio :)

Our day started at this wonderful sandwich/yogurt shop called Counter Culture. I'm sure most of you probably have this great establishment in your town, but if you don't, then you need to find one and go. It's mostly a yogurt place, but they also sell sandwiches, too. Mom told me we had to try the hot turkey sandwich on the jalapeno cheese bread. Ummm, can you say YUM-O?? Turkey breast, fresh avocado slices, tomatoes, lettuce, and chipotle mayo. I wish I had some right now.



Then Mom treated us to a dessert that tasted too good to be as healthy as they claim. It's called the Humphrey and it was fantabulous-yes, I sometimes make up words when describing food. Yummy yogurt swirled over blueberries, strawberries and bananas and then topped with honey and granola. OH.MY.GOSH! I will definitely be getting another one of these when we visit my folks again.


After our bellies were full we headed over to Painting with a Twist to unlock the inner Van Gogh in us.

Inspiration started right outside their front window for me. How cute is this? I definitely want to go to this class so I can paint this cute little owl. I'm currently obsessed with owls and this one is too cute to pass up.


We walked inside, donned our aprons, found our spots and settled in for our three hour class. I know what some of you are thinking...Three hours??? It didn't seem like that long at all and it was so much fun that we didn't even notice the time!


When I registered us for the class I told them that we were going to be celebrating Mom's birthday and they had a cute little Happy Birthday glass waiting for Mom when she got there.


We arrived about fifteen minutes early, so I used that time to take pictures of their gallery. There were so many pictures that I wanted to paint. I'll go broke before I get to paint all of these, but Mom, Andrea, and I both said that we wanted to do a class again.





Our teacher began the class and we all got down to business. I took pictures after each stage so you can see the process. I thought our teacher did a fabulous job of modeling and explaining what to do and how. Even beginning painters would do well at a class like this.

1. Sketch main elements with pencil

2. Apply background color

3. Paint two focal flowers

4. Add black vine, leaf, and orange paisley things (found out paisleys are a challenge for me)

5. Outlining everything in white.

6. White swirls and white flowers

7. Dot Land as our instructor called it

8. The finished product!

We all had so much fun! It was neat to see how each person's painting turned out just a little bit different. This is something we'll definitely do again soon. I'm so glad I got to have this time with my mom and Andrea. It was a very fun day! Love you both! Happy Birthday, Mom!

Thanks, Painting with a Twist! We had fun!