Self

Today was the last day of my painting class, it was one of those "paint what you feel" sort of classes that make me regret ever wanting to be artistic. After various paintings of my signature swirls and one painting that looked like jazz in space, which I was rather pleased with, the instructor decide to actually teach us some technique. In this final art class the instructor showed us some Picasso and set us loose to paint ourselves with the only instruction being to follow the light and use complementary colors. For most of the class I had some red and green blotches and at the suggestion of the instructor, a few blue lines on a vast white piece of paper. The woman painting next to me had created a fully formed yellow face complete with wild purple hair in the time it had taken me to decide where to place my first stroke. The woman across the table from me had created something so painfully realistic that my blotches began to look like the finger paintings of a mentally deranged individual. The instructor kept hovering over me and frowning, "maybe if you put some more blue in it" she kept saying, like some magic amount of blue was going to make it some how look human. Happy with the brush in my hand I kept plugging along and things began to take shape. I finished the painting at home this afternoon and had no one to share it with. From a class that I had dismissed as a total waste came this work that I am entirely proud of, a work that convinces me that my artistic ability actually exists. The painting, which looks much better in reality, is sitting on my mantle, a testament to my capability and creativity.