Community Based Non-Credited Courses

I ended up taking three semesters of Introduction to Painting. The first class was really scary, but I soon found out that the instructor really didn't care if you sucked. That was a good thing at first, but after a year of taking the same class over and over again I came to the conclusion that a more intense intervention was going to be necessary. Sure she helped me to choose colors better, but somehow my happy trees were still not looking happy compared to Bob Ross's.


I thought that maybe my painting were not very good because I lacked the ability to be detailed. I am inherently a big picture type of gal, so I thought I'd better get detailed if I was going to make my trees look better. I decided I needed to learn to draw.

The first drawing class was a general drawing class. I was surprised that I actually learned how to draw something more than snoopy or a hangman. My classmates were wildly encouraging, or maybe just a bit nearsighted. I completed the class and decided to take Drawing Portraits in Charcoal. That first charcoal class had me driving to school in the midst of a full fledged anxiety attack complete with tears, heart palpitations, and heavy breathing. Not a single thing in my life has ever cause the fear that this first class did because it was so far outside of my comfort zone. To me taking that class was similar to taking a class in widdling wooden figurines with your toes while wearing your socks. The amazing thing is that not only did I survive, but I actually got fairly good at it. After Mom looked at my work, she suggested that I focus more on drawing and less on painting. Ugh! My whole goal with all of this is to be able to paint Bob Ross's happy trees.