Paint Fright

Last year, I went to a Paint Night at a local brewery.

Val, our paint instructor held up a Halloween themed painting. “As you can see,” she said. “We will be painting some Spooktacular pictures.”

I studied Val’s picture of pumpkins and ghosts, set against a moonlit sky.

Spooktacular!

We started with the sky, simple swipes of midnight blue.

Next we painted the grass. I repeated the process with strokes of earth green.

I took a sip of beer and admired my work.

My mom was right. I am an artist.

Then came the moon, or should I say moons? Besides the main moon in the upper right corner, Val’s sky was dotted with smaller moons.

I guess we were painting Halloween on Jupiter.

I raised my hand. “Could I have just one moon?” I asked Val.

She shook her head. “Trust me, you’re going to want many moons.”

I dipped my brush in white and swirled circles onto my canvas. Except, my circles weren’t circular. They were lopsided and my over corrections had resulted in large white blobs.

Not very celestial.

More like fried eggs.

To make matters worse, Val told us to put an orange dot in the middle of our moons.

My moons were now sunny side up.

However, there was no time to cry over sad eggs, because it was ghost time.

Once again, I studied Val’s artwork. Her ghosts were not your traditional ghosts with proportional ghost-like physiques. These were big-headed, tiny body ghosts.

I rinsed my brush in water and dipped my paint in white.

Within minutes, my sky was stupid with ghosts. Except…

With their big heads and tail-like bodies, they looked more like…

Sperm. 

Flying Sperm.

I raised my hand again.

Did Val just roll her eyes?

“I’m not really happy with my ghosts,” I said. “Could I just paint over them?”

“You’re definitely going to want to keep the ghosts,” she said.

Val held up her painting and addressed the group. “Remember, just follow each step and your picture will look just like this.”

I nodded along with everybody else.

Communist Paint Night was not as much fun as I had expected.

“We’re going to take a break and let our ghosts dry,” Val announced.

During the break, I checked out my my friends’ work.

What the…?!

Where were their diner eggs?

Their flying sperm?

Why did their pictures look just like Val’s?

Then something alarming crossed my mind.

Were all my friends taking secret painting classes?

I looked around the room.

Was everybody taking secret painting classes?

While I was busy ruminating on why I wasn’t invited, Val informed us it was, “Tree time.”

She gave us a few simple instructions and we were off.

Within a few minutes, I had painted a tree. It was brown, vertical, and the branches resembled branches.

Spooktacular!

“Okay, who’s ready for pumpkins?” Val said.

I’ve already dipped my brush in orange, so obviously me, Val.

Very carefully, I outlined orange circles on my green grass.

Not too shabby.

Uh oh.

That side is too big.

No problem, I’ll just add a little orange over here.

Now, that side is larger.

If I just reshape this part, and…

WHY CAN’T I PAINT A FRICKIN’ CIRCLE?!

I tossed my paint brush aside and took a sip of my beer.

Nope, that was paint water.

Meanwhile, Val walked around the room, commenting on everybody’s work.

“Looks great!”

“Perfect!”

“Spooktacular!”

Did somebody just get a Spooktacular?

When Val arrived at my masterpiece, there was a long pause.

“I love the effort,” she finally said.

As an elementary school teacher, I knew what that was code for.

“My pumpkins are mutants,” I admitted.

“No, no, no,” she said, her voice dripping with sympathy. “Your pumpkins are… special.”

I felt like Elf, when the other elves tried to convince him he had “special talents.”

Was Val going to send me where the “special” painters go?

Fortunately, we were running out of time, so I was allowed to finish my painting with everybody else.

A stem here, a stem there, and…

Done!

But wait, there was more!

Group pictures. Val clicked away as we all held up our masterpieces. Everybody beamed with pride.

I just wanted to go home and cut off my ear.

Finally, the night ended, and my painting and I departed.

It sat in my office for about a week before I courageously decided to hang it up.

Why not? It was Halloween, and you couldn’t argue that my picture was scary.

The first person to notice it was my daughter.

“Hey, Mom, I like this painting,” she said, without a trace of sarcasm.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously,” she said.

It WAS a work of art.

Why had I ever doubted myself?

This kid recognized talent.

Then she added, “Did one of your students paint it?”