We recently visited our daughter in Orlando, and attended another one of her Paint Nite classes – our third. I was hoping for a synchro that night – and wasn’t disappointed.
The venue for this one was in a German restaurant, which has an entire area at the back of the restaurant that is perfect for a class of 35 to 40 people. Rob and I were early. We wanted to grab a bite to eat before the class began, so we reserved our seats with two of the green artist aprons that you wear during the glass. Our seats were at the front, where we would have a close-up of how to paint the Eiffel tower.
While we enjoyed a German dinner, Megan and her assistant for the night, Justin, were doing the rather complex setup for the class. You can grasp a sense of it in the top photo. Each spot at a table requires three brushes of various shapes and sizes, an easel and canvas, a plastic cup with water in it for cleaning brushes, a paper towel for drying the brushes, and a paper plate with a palette of basic acrylic colors on it – black and white, blue, red, and yellow. When you’re expecting 35-40 students, this process takes awhile.
At the front of the area is a sound system and two canvases – a painting for that night and a blank canvas on which Megan takes us step by step to the completion of the painting during the two-hour class.
After we finished dinner, Rob and I donned our green artist aprons and took our seats. In front of us were the painting for the night and the blank canvas, which was about a foot to the right of the Eiffel tower. Megan had painted this one in preparation for her class.
Both canvases had bright lights that shone down over them. And because we were seated at the front, those lights served as a backdrop for this, formed by the shape of the easel on which our canvases stood:
“Rob, look! It’s the Eiffel tower!” I exclaimed.
His canvas also had the shadow tower and so did the canvases of the other three people at our table. We laughed about it and the three other women at our table recognized the “coincidence” as well.
The woman next to me was delighted. “This will make painting the tower much easier.”
Maybe, I thought. But as we started with the background paint and the preliminary outline of the tower, the silhouette became less visible. And you can see I’m already having some trouble with the, well, outline!
And painting the actual tower was the trickiest part of the entire painting. Mine came out looking like something from a nightmare, but Rob’s fared much better.
The evening was great fun and the odd synchro at the beginning of the class seemed to be saying, Relax and enjoy the ride!
Wow. Rob’s looks like it was out of a nightmare too. How fun!
His nightmare wasn’t as bad as mine! Trust me on that…
But it was all great fun!
My artist friend from Brisbane
(who has given me permission to use her paintings on a few of my posts over the years) Starr paints using the Eiffel Tower in a number of her paintings.
You can view some of her Tower paintings here at this link –
https://redhillgallery.com.au/Starr2012.html
Maybe Megan would be interested in viewing her work ?
Thanks for the link! We’ll take a look!
Checked her site. Wow, love her style! The paintings for Paint Nite aare chosen by corporate headquarters in Massachusetts. This wasn’t one of Megan’s original paintings. She gets the assignment, then does her own painting based on that, so she knows how to break it down in order to teach it.
That’s a feel good synchro! And I agree with what Shadow says about your painting.
That painting is Rob’s. Mine really was something from a nightmare!
Shadow commenting on the odd shadow.
Isn’t that a sync in itself ?-)
Good point! Double synch!
That was cool and really what were the odds that that shape woukd show up!
The odds must be huge!
Fun synchro! Loved it! And you should have posted your nightmare painting! 😉
I can’t wait for the trip I’m in Orlando with extra time to take one of Megan’s classes!
You’ll love her class, Melissa.
You sure lead an interesting life. All those synchro’s. I must start writing mine down, because there’s been some eeries things happening lately…
As for your painting, it’s great because you did it and had fun doing it!
Write them down, Shadow!