Making Art

    For the last few years we had driven past signs advertising an open art studio. They have a selection of various projects to choose from. People can come in an work with mosaics, fused glass, or paint pottery. There is a place for metalwork and a place for people to make jewelry. I'd always been a little curious about the place. On one hand, it looked like fun. On the other hand it could be a place that catered more to children than adults.
   This year I asked Charlie if we might go there. I'd looked it up on the Internet and it looked like something fun to do. He agreed that we could at least take a look.
   When we got there we were greeted by a young woman who told us what projects were open and where we could work on each one. I was torn between jewelry making and painting pottery. I elected to paint pottery as I didn't think C would want to make jewelry. Also, when you make jewelry you should have at least some idea of what you want to do and I was clueless.
   We went upstairs to the pottery studio. The were shelves full of unpainted ceramics waiting to be given some colour. There were seasonal items, bowls, large serving plates, little sculptures of animals and tic tac toe games. There were glasses and several styles of mugs. I located two mugs and a teapot. I really didn't need more mugs or teapots, but they were the only things in the mass of white ceramic that I was drawn to. C picked two cat figurines. He planned to paint them to look like Scamp and Colby.
  The young woman told us that it is best to start on one project at a time. I started on a mug. C picked out one of the cat figurines. He decided to start with the one that looked like Scamp. I decided I was going to paint my mug red and put musical notations on it. It would be C's mug. I painted it carefully putting on several coats and tried very hard not to miss spots. I had a bottle of paint with a small tip on it to put on the notations. I took too much of the tip off and made a big black blob on the mug. When I tried to wipe it off some of the red paint came off. I decided that the blob would have to stay.
  Then I realised I had a problem. I can't draw very well. I started out with something simple, an eighth note. I drew several of them and they didn't look too bad. I tired drawing half and whole notes. This didn't turn out so well. I couldn't remember any other musical notations. C showed me how to draw a base clef sign, a sharp sign and a flat sign. I drew several of them on the mug, but it still looked bare. I decided to write "Without music life would be flat" around the outside edge of the mug. It didn't look too bad.
   I started on my mug. This would be easy. I would paint it blue and put multicoloured dots all over it. I got some blue paint. Then I found that there was a stand that I could put my mug on that I could spin to get all the sides painted. This would make my job much easier. While I was doing this C was carefully painting his cat. He had chosen black and gold paint. He mixed the colours a bit in an effort to duplicate Scamp's fur.
   While I was making the dots on my mug, C finished the Scamp figurine and stared on the Colby one. This would be tricky. Colby is an orange tabby and none of the paints really matched his fur. C decided that he could mix a few colours.
   Meanwhile I had finished my cup and now needed to paint the teapot. I had no idea what I was going to do. It needed to be something that tied the cups together. That meant that I needed to use both red and blue. I decided the best thing to do would be to paint it white and then paint a blue and red stripe on it. I could paint the spout blue and the handle red. The young woman gave me a lot of white paint. I put all of it on the pot. Then I painted on the stripes. I could not get them even. I tried as hard as I could, but it just wasn't going to happen. I should have known. Art was never my best subject.
   We carried our projects downstairs to be fired. We could pick them up tomorrow afternoon. We paid for our projects and left.
  I thought it was fun and C had to admit that he had a good time too. It isn't going to be something that we'd do on a regular basis, but it was fun to try. We both wondered what our projects would look like once fired.
   Earlier today we picked them up. C's cats turned out well. I was pleased with my mugs, but wished the pot had turned out better. The stripes weren't nice and solid. The brush strokes were easily visible. I told myself that it wasn't perfect, but at least it was original.
   All we need to do now is get them home in one piece. I'm looking forward to trying out my new pot and cups. we can sip on tea, look at pictures of out trip and admire our new cat figurines.