LAURINBURG — Armed with brushes and acryclic paints with the potential to immortalize an embarrassing error, more than a dozen people sipped glasses filled with their choice of liquid fortification on Thursday in a social painting session at the Storytelling and Arts Center of the Southeast.
Dora Sharber led the center’s first “Paint and Wine Thursday” class, directing participants through the steps in composing a replica of a photograph taken from a spot on the Pee Dee River.
Participants were given a small canvas, brushes, and dabs of black, white, blue, green, brown, and yellow paint along with directions to begin with a blue sky, green grass, a brown bank, and a blue river. The artistic details — time of day and prominence of the sun — were left up to the interpretation.
“We’re not going to start with the details, we’re going to start with the big stuff,” Sharber said.
Inexperienced artists, peering over at the work of those next to them, were quickly reassured about the quality of their own painting.
“My goal is not that you do one that looks just like (the photo); do something that reminds you of that,” Sharber said. “I’ve painted it two or three times and every time it’s different. So we’re not about everybody’s looking exactly like everybody else’s.”
SACS will hold two more painting classes this summer, on July 23 and on Aug. 20. Call the center at 910-277-3599 for information.
Mary Katherine Murphy can be reached at 910-506-3169.