The Paint Nite event at Amie's wine bar and resteraunt was tremendous amounts of fun. Rupy, the master artist, led you through each layer of the painting. The control she had over the painting process and the crowd was exemplified when she instructed everyone to hold a wine glass in one hand as they worked on the leaves. Everyone ended up with smiles on their faces and a wonderful painting to take home.
I had worked at home on some sketches of the Coneflower painting. I tried to put more color and make a piece with more expression in it. With Rupy, I found that the piece was more about folding each part of the process into the whole painting.Starting with the blue background and getting a wash over the whole canvas is the foundation of the painting. I was having issues with it when sketching at home, as I kept trying to add it after I had developed the foreground. The background has to be finished in order for you to begin developing the foreground.Rupy also had the wonderful advice of allowing your painting to dry and allowing you to breathe through each step. Taking breaks is important to enjoy the atmosphere you are in (a really cool bar filled with awesome people, music, food and drinks) and also appreciate where you are in the process of painting. After taking a break to socialize, drink, or whatever, when you came back to the painting you felt fresh to continue on to the next step.
Here are videos featuring the painting process. They are sped up 250%.