Bohemian Magic: Painting Class With Aunt Fi Fi : Fishies

So I finally had some time to sit down today and edit these photos from this past weekend!

I attended a painting class with my Aunt Fi Fi on Friday night! It's always so much fun to go to these with her, she is such a little ball of creativity and talent. She has been going to this woman's classes for years and once in awhile I tag along when I really like the project they are working on.

The woman who teaches the class is Cathy Monaco.

She teaches flat brush & dry brush techniques and boy is she a character!

Half the class is spent laughing at the things that come out of that woman's mouth...

The classes are taught out of Cathy's basement, the number of people in the classes used to be a lot more, but there was only the 3 of us students for this one...

Below is a pic of Fi Fi setting up her station, and along the wall are Cathy's paintings she's done throughout the years...

Here are most of the colors that we used for the background...

The first step is to paint the background like a gradient with a lot of water to blend the 3 different colors together for the water. Then we had to paint the whispy little seaweed strands the Calypso Blue to give it the impression that it is in the distance. We also did some smaller fish like this as well...

I did not photograph every single step because I had to keep up with the rest of the class, so I photographed what I could. We also used a few more colors for the fishies...

Aren't they so cute!?!

This is what the final piece looked like when I was done painting at the end of the class...

Both Fi Fi and I were not happy with how our shading below our seaweed plants came out...

Cathy also suggested that we glue seashells to the painting...

Right away I remembered that I had some little seashells, rhinestones, and a seahorse that I could use to glue it on...

It didn't stop there though, I had the sudden urge to glitter the WHOLE THING and make it look like a magickal underwaterscape scene!!!

Here is the finished glittered product!

I used some moss to cover the shading that I didn't like as well!!

These yellow fish sparkle so nicely in the sunlight!!

I had some flower confetti i used to top off my seaweed with

and centered them each with sparkly rhinestones...

My mom saw it and remembered she had a tiny starfish that she has been wondering what to do with for a long time, so she said "OH I HAVE JUST THE THING FOR THIS TO FINISH IT OFF!"

So she gave me the starfish and I put that on as well!

Now it has the perfect home!!

I forget the names of these types of fish, but Cathy told us during the class...

I added some black glitter to them, but not all the way through because I did't want to ruin the white dry brushing effect that makes the fish look see through and reflective....