Blogosphere meets Real Life

Wifester was a bit concerned that Real Live Lesbian may just be a serial kidnapper and that she may never see me alive again if I were to leave the house with her to go on our Saturday morning adventure to the art workshop that we'd scheduled ourselves to attend.
Much to Wifester's relief, Real Live Lesbian was not a serial kidnapper, nor a psycho killer, and was, in fact, quite delightful and entertaining. She's much prettier in real life than her profile photo, and that's a rare occurrence. But far beyond physical appearance, she was also genuine, sweet, and fun to hang out with for the day! Although I was looking forward to being a kidnape'.
She showed up here around 10:15 am or so, and I poured us each a cup of coffee to go. French Vanilla, with french vanilla creamer. MMMMM coffee. Nothing starts a day right like a good cup of Joe. And I've found it to be just the stimulant my right brain needs to get those neurons popping after a long week of pouring over past due, mismatched, and unreceived invoices with merchants and reporting my findings to the banks. Real Live Lesbian and I commisserated on the necessity and difficulty in leaving work behind, especially work involving numbers, and tapping into the free flowing, non-linear world of art.
It was great to meet Real Live, talk and share our ideas, our stories, and our happiness about our respective lives. Often, when I meet a new person, it just feels awkward, and remains that way until I've spent quite a bit of time around them. Not so with Real Live. She was easy to get along with and easy to relax around right away.
We went to the workshop, and met an array of people, from different walks of life, all there in the same spirit as us, to create art, release some negativity, and draw in some positive energy.
We were working on a mixed media piece, to represent letting go of something negative, or releasing.
This was a first for me, both in painting around other people, and in working with mixed mediums.
I began by building my canvas up with articles I clipped from my The Nation magazine. Clips of G.W. Bush and his failures, articles that discussed topics such as the attempts to ban gay marriage, the stock market decline, gas prices, the negativity in political ads, etc. to create a textured surface. I really wanted to bury my angst with my government and learn to rise above it.
In the end, after laying that down as my framework, and painting, then applying some special pieces, such as my great aunt's beads from a necklace that has broken, a lovely sand dollar, and even a twig, I ended up with this,



I'm calling her, "Learning to Swim". If you are standing in just the right light, at just the right angle, you can see the title of one article, "Bye-bye Bush" peeking through the paint. I think that's just perfect!

Real Live created some beautiful birds in flight over a field of poppies.

Her technique and approach are pure genius! I thoroughly enjoyed the class and my time with my fellow local blogger.
My final evaluation? Real Live Lesbian can kidnap me anytime she wants to hit an art workshop. Next time, I'm bringing some Belinis, or Mimosas, or a nice Sangria. Yum!

I forgot my camera, and only had my phone again, but RLL had hers, and we even had the instructor take our photo, together, holding our paintings. Stop by her place, I'm sure she'll post it there.