Spirited Chattanooga: Painting the Chattanooga Skyline

Some of you may not know this, but I was a Fine Art student in college. My classes were predominantly graphic design focused, but my degree actually came in the form of a Bachelor of Science in Fine Art.

I spent a lot of time in the art building. Hours and hours in the studio. I really loved oil painting. I wasn't great at it but I found the process to be very therapeutic. Just me and my canvas spending hours and hours in a studio full of natural light and some my favorite music.

 
I miss those days.

Over the years I have done some abstract art for my house, but it isn't something I have spent much time on in the past decade.

I was recently invited to attend a painting class at Spirited Chattanooga for a friend's birthday. Part of me felt like it would be a bit hokey, but since I don't get many opportunities to have a "me" night I decided to go.

The teacher was a young woman, possibly a college student. She started everyone out with a stencil and then walked the class through the process of mixing the acrylic paint to achieve the colors that we would lay on the canvas. 

As someone with a degree in art, it was a fairly simplistic class, but the thing that surprised me was how much I miss sitting in front of an easel.

I remembered how Professor Pitt (during my Harding days) had us duct tape our hands to our pencil for a drawing class so that we would learn to use our arm instead of our wrist to draw. 

As I sat, I focused on adding depth to my colors; making the dark spaces truly dark; and how I was applying the paint. But mostly I just enjoyed sitting there with my easel and limited distractions.