Overall, I’d consider myself a pretty crafty person. Over the years I’ve done some cross-stitch projects, whipped up some pretty snazzy stained glass windows and even threw some porcelain on the pottery wheel. While I enjoy painting stuff like furniture and walls, I’ve never really been artistic in the way of being able to draw things. So, whenever I’d see someone post about a Paint Night event I’d think it was cool but knew that my painting would be the worst in the bunch.
Also, what would I even do with a terribly painted picture of a random flower or sunset? Probably just hang onto it until I decided to throw it in the fire pit…
A few weeks ago I saw that they were doing a Maryland-themed paint night event at the Columbia Arts Center. So, I decided to suck it up and try it out for myself. The class was taught by Mark Russo from Mark Russo Creations and he provided the paper guide to our design, a reclaimed wood pallet, all the paint and measuring materials needed… and the moral support.
I was actually surprised that there were no stencils involved, just a sheet showing you how to divide up the sections of your design. Oh, and I could have done a few different designs such as a Maryland crab, Black Eyed Susan (the Maryland flower) or the Maryland Flag (with or without a crab added) and I decided to stick with just the flag design.
I started by sectioning out the pallet penciling on all the lines that I would need to make the design of the flag.
Then, I used the paints they gave me to mix up some custom colors and started on filling in the guides that I had drawn.
I did two coats of each color and finished up by adding on the black and then white to cover up some of my pencil lines.
And BOOM, I’m done! It took about 2 ½ hours but I did this 100% by myself and I’m thrilled at how awesome it turned out!
Now that I’ve successfully completed my first pallet painting, I’m thinking about doing another one. I have the guides for the Maryland flag, so I might try to do my own Maryland flag beer openers on some blocks of wood, like on Mark’s Instagram page. If I can figure them out, the will make awesome Christmas gifts for my siblings!
Have you done one of those Paint Night classes? What did you make?
Nice work! I’ve done a “Cork n Canvas” type thing, for a friend’s birthday, and we painted a bright yellow Eiffel tower on a blue background. It turned out ok, but I don’t have anywhere to put that. So I’d like to try it again and I’m waiting for an art item that would go somewhere in my house or as a gift for someone I know. Yours turned out wonderful!
Thank you! I had that problem too with a lot of the designs I saw… even if it did turn out well, I don’t know where I would put them!