Taking Another Step Forward

The local United Church was going to hold a fund raiser they decided to call Hats & Hostas.  There is a  man in this village that grows over 100 different kinds of hostas, and he said that visitors could come and view his garden.  He would sit in the shade and play his keyboard and various local artists would sit in the garden and paint.  There would be a lovely tea held in the church hall, and the public could go there either before or after visiting the garden. 

I was asked if I'd like to sit in the garden and paint.  I thought they had to be kidding.  I live in a village full of artists, but I'm certainly don't consider myself to be one of them.  I have been taking painting classes for numerous years though, and my instructor encouraged me to take part.  No one else in the class would accept this challenge though. 

My first question was, "Will there be members of the local arts guild involved in this project?"  The answer was no. I felt somewhat better about that, as I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable working among them. I mean, I'm just not at that level, and I had no wish to totally embarrass myself. 

Then someone asked me if I had a hat, as you were supposed to wear one while sitting among the hostas.  The event was called, "Hats & Hostas" after all.  Well, hey, I have a hat!  I have a hat that is so grand, I'll likely never get a place to wear it.  I mean, where could I ever wear this thing?  If I wore it to a wedding, I'd outshine the bride!  So, I said I'd do it.  Nobody would ever notice what I was painting as they would all be so fascinated with the hat, they wouldn't be looking at what I was doing.  I decided to do it.

The event took place this past Saturday.  It was great fun actually.  It was very peaceful sitting among the hostas, painting hostas (of course).  I was working in watercolour, and since I didn't want to have to sit around waiting for paint to dry all afternoon, I got 3 underway before the event started.  I thought it would be more interesting for the people who came early in the day  not to find us all with blank paper.  My  instructor also thought that was a good idea and got hers started ahead of time too.
Mostly, I think the people were more interested in the hostas than in us, but we each had a few people comment on what we were doing.  One lady noticed I was using frisket, and said she always had difficulty with that.  The variegated hosta with the white around the edge required me to use that though, as the lines are too thin for me to have been sure I could preserve them any other way.  Since I was working on more than one painting at a time, none of them are anywhere near finished yet. 

It was an entirely new experience for me, and I think I've taken a step forward by doing this.  Would I do it again?  Sure, if someone had enough confidence in me to ask.