Last night Andy and I did something totally new and different for our “husband-wife” day, as he likes to call it! I’m a Groupon fanatic and I’ve found a lot of cool things to do around there via them, including this little gem of a date we went on last night. Picture this: painting while enjoying wine and cheese while a local artist guides you through recreating one of their own original pieces. Cool right?! YES!

Happy Trees!

The ArtBar in San Luis Obispo is my new favorite place! Tucked away next to the Granada Hotel and Bistro, this small studio houses a large community table where newbees (like me) try and paint, watercolor, or draw within the allotted time of two hours. I just think this is the neatest concept and I can’t believe I didn’t find it sooner! We ventured into the ArtBar at four o’clock yesterday not knowing what we were in for. I had chosen the artist, Tracy Taylor, from the calendar online where you can pick which medium you’d prefer and read artist biographies. Her piece was called “The Flying Buddha” and looked right up my alley. I didn’t realize watercoloring is so difficult! Who knew?!

Local artist Tracy Taylor.

I knew Andy would be down for this even though he acted skeptical when I was telling him what we were doing! He draws incredibly well even though he doesn’t pick up his pencils often and won’t bring this fact up in social circles. I doubt any of his friends even know how creative Andy is outside of the kitchen! Oh! And he is obsessed with Bob Ross! So the artist Tracy was all over my paper last night, taking my brush out of my hands for long periods of time, and painting on my canvas! and reiterating that I needed to use more water! At one point, she grabbed my half-finished project and threw it away, placing another outline in front of me! Too funny!

She was telling me I needed to loosen up, to which I replied I was already half a bottle deep in wine and I was feeling just fine! I didn’t mind though, Tracy was right, it did allow me to free up my watercolor technique! She was critiquing everyone at the table- EXCEPT Andy! Don’t you know she was ‘ooo-ing and aaa-ing’ him and praising his use of color and how well he blended his paints and so on and so on. His piece did come out pretty good though, I gotta give him that! His is on the left, mine is on the right! Oh! And the food at Granada was SO good. The atmosphere and layout reminded us both of our local haunts in Chicago. We will be back, for sure!

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I’m home sick today, trying to fight this sinus cold I can’t seem to get rid of and that intensified after my camping trip. Vitamin C, Zinc, DayQuill, you name it, I’m on it! I think I’m going to take a long nap and then make some delicious Vegetarian Lentil and Kale Soup for dinner tonight. I’ll post the recipe tomorrow for you Yummy Yogini readers but until then, get out there and support local art!