In The Begining

About a year ago, some of my artist friends and I got together and decided that we needed to find a place to paint on a regular basis.  We are all members of the Kingwood Art Society, but we needed something more.  We all complained about needing to set more time aside each week to paint on a regular basis.  So, after about a month of looking we finally found a place that suited us.  Our local craft store let us meet there free of charge every Thursday for as long as we wanted.  It's to the store's advantage to let us paint there.  Half of the time we are wandering around the store buying up paint or supplies.  They look forward to us coming I'm sure.

We paint until 11:30 am and then break for lunch (some of us get cranky if we go a minute past).  We walk over to Luby's and eat, laugh, and vent.  Then we go back and paint for however long we want.

Some of our group shows up a little before lunch and never even picks up a brush.  We call them "Lunch Artists".  

There are usually around 5-7 of us that come on a weekly basis.   Some days we come with every intension of painting but for some reason, our heart is just not into it that day.  We all have those days every now and then.  But the important thing is, that we came.  We make it a habit to set aside every Thursday to paint.  

We paint, we critique each other (when asked for), we bounce ideas off of each other, laugh until we cry, or some just come to visit.

We have planned and went on a painting retreat with our group in the Texas Hill Country at the Bunk House.  That was terrific.  And we plan to have one about every 3-4 months in various places.  (I think we are due another one soon!)  

I hope to encourage more people to attend our group or start their own.  I can't even explain how wonderful it has been this past year to have been blessed to be able to do this.  I pray we get to do this for a long time to come.