Paint the Night!

Has anyone ever seen Disneyland’s “Paint the Night” parade?

It’s absolutely incredible, but it’s no wonder they need to paint the night considering how much light pollution Disneyland gives off. I, however, live in a blissfully secluded area with no pollution, so I can see the night sky very clearly with little to no light pollution. And it was to my delight yesterday when I got to literally sit down and “paint the night.”   

There’s nothing like a relaxing art session after work to relax me. Even better is an art class, so there’s no wondering about what to draw/paint or worrying over the first stroke of the pencil/paintbrush.    

After an incredibly stressful day at work, my co-worker and I clocked out and headed to our art class together. As we entered the room, the entire atmosphere changed immediately. The hard work day evaporated from my mind as the smell of paint rushed in to greet me. Everyone smiled and greeted us as I sat next to my partner-in-crime who always attends art classes with me.    

The project for the night?  

Painting a galaxy.    

The amount of stars and the multiple colors we used made it look just like a photoshopped picture off of the internet- but with paint! 

I should have taken pictures of the step-by-step process, but at the time I wasn’t planning on writing a post about it, unfortunately. 

Instead of a typical paintbrush, we used natural sponges wrung in water and paint to get the texture of the blue background. This proved to be very… untidy, as we later found out. Being a room full of mostly young women, we decided to go all out with the paint since we were already very messy. 

After getting a base of blue and black, we were instructed to dab some pink, purple, and/or white to give it depth and that galaxy, multi-colored, celestial-feel.  

Now for the most fun part for me, personally. We took our wide brushes and lightly coated them with very watered-down white paint. In short, gentle bursts, we blew on the back of the brushes to spray stars everywhere on the canvas! I also had some fun with my paintbrush doing little comets streaking across the sky. 

Wanting to be slightly different from the rest of the class, I dipped my paintbrush in red paint as well to sprinkle in some red stars- cuz why not? I quickly tested it on some clean paper, and after confirming with the rest of the class that it looked like blood spray, I tried it on my painting. 

…This failed. 

Not only was the paint being more difficult by not leaving my brush, when I attempted to flick it onto the canvas instead, it flicked with too much vigor. Red paint splattered in globs on the bottom left corner. Luckily, most of the paint was already drying, so I just dabbed my forearm at the wet, red paint and it schmeared off. 

The final step was to add the trees on the bottom. We weren’t really taught how to do them, it was left up to us to give it our own unique touch. Some of the ladies even drew trees all around the perimeter of the canvas to give it the appearance of looking up at the stars! 

Very fun night with my girls, and it’s always rewarding to bring home a new painting!   

Shout-out to @dreemsteem, @freedomtowrite, and @bluefinstudios for encouraging me to write a new post!