I've been itching to get back into painting for quite some time, and last week, I finally broke the seal. My hubs and I took a painting class, but it wasn't your run of the mill painting class, it was a BYOB painting class. Booze and painting separately are pretty great, but combining those two is just plain brilliant. If you haven't heard of this sort of concept, let me fill you in. This company called "Beyond the Canvas" offers classes several times each month in which they provide you with painting supplies and more importantly, in depth step-by-step instruction on how to paint a particular subject, all whilst you sip on a tasty adult bevy.

The particular class we chose was titled "BYOB Paint & Ice Cream Workshop." It couldn't have sounded more up my alley. Going into the evening, I only knew that we were going to paint dessert and drink some wine, but didn't know anything further than that. As we walked in, I looked up and immediately recognized Wayne Thiebaud's "Four Ice Cream Cones" painting projected onto the wall, a personal favorite of mine. This was the subject we were going to recreate, we were told. I was stoked because Wayne Thiebaud is one of my all-time favorite artists. Take a gander to the very top of my blog. Those paintings are all Wayne. #wayneismyhomeboy

I first learned about Wayne early on in college. I was drawn to his work instantly. Firstly, he's crazy talented, secondly his use of color is fantastic (even his shadows are gorgeous, is that a weird thing to say?) and thirdly, one of his favorite subjects to paint is dessert. Mad painting skills AND he loves to paint dessert? Man after my heart! So the fact that we got to attempt to recreate one of his dessert paintings was pretty damn cool.

We were given roughly 2.5 hrs to tackle this painting, which was SO not enough time! It felt like a Top Chef quickfire challenge. About halfway through the class, when we were deep into Wayne's painting, we were served ice cream! I usually welcome ice cream interruptions, but now I had to multi-task the wine drinking, painting AND ice cream eating. The ultimate mission. My husband kept having to remind me to take a bite of my ice cream or to keep sipping my wine. I have never ever needed reminders for these two things in my life. I couldn't help it though, I was in the WT zone! So the next thing we knew, it was 10pm and we were the last ones there. It was time to go, even though I could have used at least another hour to work on my "masterpiece."

Overall, I had a most excellent evening. Even my hubs, who hadn't painted since he was a tween, did a stellar job and enjoyed himself. He drank most of our bottle of wine, how could he not? I tip my hat to my man Wayne, I hope we did him justice.

Dessert Fiend