Picture a Day - Day 167

Remember that little card I made a while back? The one with the field of flowers that I easily spent an hour on (possibly more)?

Well my husband was looking through all the craptastic piles of cards for Mother's day (his family are huge card people, we got a good three for Thanksgiving) and after finding not a single good one I suggested why not just use up that one card I painted.

It wasn't til the thing was in the mail that I realized I may have just made a major mistake. Now instead of expecting some random Hallmark produced and printed card for every holiday I could have to sit down and for a few hours create a painting just to send off to his parents.

Birthdays, graduations, weddings, bank holidays! All with me having to remember about the damn thing weeks in advance so I can plan something and get it done on time or shall be shunned from the community and forced to live in the woods like an outlaw.

Since it was my husband who got me into the sudden predicament he was gonna have to help. So I've started teaching him how to paint.

I thought I'd start pretty simple, a beach scene without the beach. Just sky and water and no major annoying details. It was easy to explain some simple tricks. For the sky darker up top and then whiter as you get to the horizon and the exact opposite for the water. Darker to imply deeper water and lighter for shallow.

Can you guess which is mine and which is his?

It is kinda strange to have to think back to when I first started out and how little I knew then. It was over time that it began to dawn on me how to hold a brush to get a certain stroke I liked. When to use water for more of a stained look and when to glob the paint on. Just how much nature isn't a single straight line but a zillion jagged ones.

I think he did a very good job for his first painting. Both of my first paintings I threw away a few months in as I just couldn't stand looking at them anymore. Crazy to think that I've only been doing this for 5 months (but then again also wild to realize I have been churning paintings out for 5 months).

My husband was feeling a little down for not being able to crank out a perfect looking ocean scene his first time so I let him play with my spoon and paint and make a little abstract thing:I kinda like it, with all the swirls and the interesting stitching going across it.

Painting is much like any creative outlet, be it learning to play an instrument, photography or arc welding. There is some intuition to it but there's also a whole lot of work and time poured into learning just what you can do with some pigments and a bit of canvas. It's the work that seems to discourage people a lot though I can easily say I've spent over 50 hours working on just learning techniques on my own.

Have you ever tried to teach your significant other how to do something? Or have they ever tried to teach you? Has it involved getting into an art form? Anyone trust their husband enough with their camera (because I'm seriously debating about that as well, I just have to get him to agree)?