With paint brush in hand...

I attended my first "Paint and Party" class.  It's a trend that has been around for a while, especially in metropolitan areas, but it has finally started to trend out here in the rural areas of the mountain west. 

Here's the artist giving us a step-by-step demo.

OK.  Let's start with what I didn't expect:
I didn't expect to see nearly 100 people (all of them gals, except for 2 brave guys!).
I didn't expect a loud-music party atmosphere.
I didn't expect high tech equipment - 2 large screen TV's monitoring the painting process, cordless microphones, and a sound system.
Snacks and cash bar.
I didn't expect a crew of people ready to change my cup of dirty paint water several times, get paper towels, replenish paint, etc. 
Frames were even available, and one of the staff assembled and framed paintings on the spot.

The whole event was very well organized and plenty of staff members took care of all the details so that the actual process of following the instructions for painting a completed picture took only 3 hours.  Pretty amazing.  A fun event.

I had my phone, so I was able to take a few pictures of the process.

It's a four-seasons tree, and at this point, I've completed the left (spring) section of background color.

Background for the summer section was added.

The fall section was mainly blue, and the bottom section (winter) had grey added.

Next we added the branches, followed by painting in all the squiggly decorations.

I took too much time working on these details and was trying to catch up...so no time for pictures on that part of the process.  I still could have used 30 more minutes!!  But I suppose a person can always work on it more at home.  Isn't that kind of amazing?  Have you ever attended a Painting Party??