On Sunday afternoon, Bruce and I set off to do something different and explore a new (to us) part of Dallas. It was pouring so it put a little damper (ha!) on our attempts to explore the areas surrounding White Rock Lake. But that wasn’t the main event. You see, I signed us up for a “Paint Your Pet” class at Pinot’s Palette, a franchised drink wine/eat snacks while you paint place.

Even though it’s completely wrong to pick a favorite when you have four dogs to choose from, you may have gathered from my previous posts that George has grabbed a bigger place in my heart than the others. His goofiness, his need to  carry toys in his mouth at all times, and his love of snuggling may have started this love fest, but the fact that he follows me around (the others all follow Bruce), didn’t hurt. So I decided that I’d paint my favorite photo of George. Yes, he has two tennis balls in his mouth. He had three but he dropped one before the photo was snapped.

The whole process was easy. When we showed up, the photos we provided were already printed on the canvas (see above) and they had put brushes, a cup of water and a paper plate with black and white paint on it. The instructor told us to bring our photo and the paper plate and line up to get the rest of the paint we needed. While we were getting paint, the helpers told us how to mix the colors we needed.

One coat of background green underway

We then went back to our easels to paint the background. I chose a bright green to make George stand out more.

Background done.

Since we are not framing our “masterpieces” we painted the sides the background color too. Photo by Bruce

After we were happy with our backgrounds, it was time to start creating the shading and definition. The instructor helped us to understand why it was important, but he also made it look too easy. It was actually hard! And mixing the colors was also a little tricky. So I kind of forgot that we were also supposed to be drinking wine while painting. Probably better for the painting though.

some shading and white underway

Lots of things were really hard to paint: the tennis balls and George’s nose. All three are a little lopsided. But his eyes turned out much better than I thought they would. The pink area is George’s scar tissue where his fur doesn’t grow.

It kinda looks likes George. Photo by Bruce

The painting kinda resembles the photo. Not bad for a first timer.

The finished George painting.

Bruce picked Gidget. As the last to arrive, Gidget doesn’t appear in as many photos around the house, so I think he wanted her to have a nice picture too. He also liked the blue color of her pool as a background color.

Bruce painting the background.

Bruce did a great job on Gidget! Photo by Bruce

No gratuitous G photo today—you got to see plenty of gratuitous George and Gidget. But if you’ve ever thought about doing one of those paint and drink wine classes, do it! It’s fun and you get a souvenir to take home.