# 46 - Paint a Painting

Ha! Well, talk about taking it too far... I impress myself sometimes with my ability to take a little seed of nothing and blow completely out of proportion. So #46 - Paint a Painting... I figured, it'll get my creative juices flowing, it sounded like a relatively easy thing to accomplish on the list, it's something I've always said I would like to do... So last week I decide it's my next project on the list. I call up my mom and ask her to put together some paint for me from the factory (it's part of the family business)... I get the paint and then obviously realize I need to get canvases to paint on. Get those and then realize I obviously need brushes... and who paints without an easel? Need one of those too! Oh! And I want one of those fancy-shmancy paint palettes! Anyways, as you can see, one thing EASILY leads to another and before you know it my office now looks like I think I'm Van Gogh or something... Don't forget, I've never painted outside of my high school art class 13 years ago. All I wanted to do was "paint a painting"!

Lol... it's OK, you can laugh. Anyways, so it took me almost 3 hours to set up "Chez Lise" paint-shop... First of all, that shelf was in the laundry room, being very useful where it was. But no, I needed it in the office because it matched the easel I just purchased. It took FORTY-FIVE minutes to get it out of the laundry room - it was like a university-level math/geometry exam question. I practically needed a PhD to get it out of there! I had the measuring tape out, the level, I even almost unhinged the door with the power tools I bought because of my last great idea. Ahhhh.... so I finally get the shelf out, and now I have to put the easel together. First of all, the instructions only tell you about 4 pieces of wood and 15 screws/nuts/whatever, when in reality, there are 12 pieces of wood and 20 screws/nuts/whatever... What did I expect from an easel made in China... the tagline didn't even make sense! I had to take a picture (below) and see if anybody out there a) thinks it's proper english and can explain it to me or b) understands how the Chinese got the french tagline right after butchering the english one. In case the font is too small in the picture, it says "Made of Fir wood, natural look of nuts give is beauty to this easel"... Really?

Another hour or so later that was taken care of. Then of course, everything had to be placed just so on the shelf, then re-placed so it was more convenient, then re-placed a last time so that it combined convenience and aesthetic appeal...

Then came the painting... 2 hours, and what did I do? Crap. So, I did the smartest thing I could think of and painted over it in white. But at least the canvas now has great texture! (Actually laughing out loud at myself now).

Oh well, I'm going to try to create a masterpiece tonight... The physical part of painting is actually very relaxing, the mental part not so much when you have no idea what you're trying to paint.

Anyways, that's it for #46 for now. Clearly, cannot check it off my list. Hopefully I'll have something better to show for it soon. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the art of Irene Morgis. My beloved grandmother who was a beautifully talented artist (and one heck of a woman, grandmother, fighter- you name it). This was a college project. She called it... "Screaming Vagina"... and yes, this is what you're staring at when you're eating at my dining room table ; )