Did someone say pottery painting? Sign me up! I got to go to Color Me Mine for the first time and I was so excited. My group had a time block from 5pm-7pm, with the sitting fee and up to a $40 piece covered.
Before going, I started thinking of what I would want. We weren’t told ahead of time what the budget is or what pieces are available, so it was a bit hard to plan for. I did think it would be cool to paint a bowl or plate though! If I got a bowl, I’d paint a poke bowl or a chirashi bowl. If I got a plate, I would paint some nigiri! My backup plan would be to paint something Snoopy related.
Of course, I should have had a backup plan to my backup plan. I arrived at the studio around 5:06pm and immediately started looking at the options. There were so many options, but none of the bowls and plates were the size I wanted. I walked back and forth looking at the options. Some pieces looked cool, but it would just be a decorative piece. I wanted something that I could maybe use.
As everyone chose their piece and went to sit down to start painting, I found myself one of the last two still choosing. I quickly grabbed something and sat down.
The piece I chose had five separate pieces – 4 small plates inside a holder. I thought they were just cute little plates (maybe I could use them to hold soy sauce), but everyone kept saying they were coasters! They look so small for a coaster. Since this was nothing like what I thought I was going to paint, I had to re-think what to paint. I could have done my backup plan (Snoopy), but that would mean having to paint four different characters. I tried to think of other options as fast as I could, then finally decided on…food!
I got straight to it. I sketched the food on my plates, and thought about the color pairing. Little did I know, I wouldn’t be able to see my sketches after painting the base color.
I did three layers of paint for the plates, which ended up taking so much time because I wanted a different color for each plate! The paint does dry pretty quickly, but at one point, I ended up grabbing a second paintbrush so I can paint two pieces at once. I kept having to get up from the table to grab more paint too. I should have poured the paint in the bigger circle. My base layer ended up being so thick that I couldn’t remember which color was for which food!
For my plate holder, I didn’t have enough time to properly paint the inside, and there was so much more surface area and sides to paint. I only had the time to paint one layer on the inside, so I’m curious how the inside will turn out!
Although our time block was until 7pm, the staff let us stay longer if needed. It did seem like we had to finish today though, so I continued painting as quickly as I could. I painted my egg waffle first. It was a bit hard to get the shape I wanted without being able to see my pencil markings. I should have done it in two colors, but I ended up just doing one color and tracing it over in black which was not the best idea.
Next, I moved on to my satay. This was probably the easiest to draw, except for the cucumber slices. For my nigiri, I didn’t draw it big enough! This one was probably the one I am most sad about. My nigiri was not centered like my pencil sketch, and it turned out way too small. I also forgot to add some texture to the rice!
I finally made it to my dim sum. I only drew in four siu mai, and luckily, it wasn’t too hard to free hand. Everyone (except for one other person) had already finished their piece by now and were just waiting around. I had originally wanted to make the entire plate look like a bamboo steamer, but there was definitely not enough time for that! I even decided to reuse some of the color I had poured for my other places so I didn’t have to go grab paint again. To keep the plate holder not so plain, I aded a big C to the front. I ended up finishing at 7:35pm, just a couple of minutes after the second to last person.
I do think I liked the colors I chose, although the green and gray plates could have been a bit darker. It was definitely a bit ambitious to choose an item that had five pieces (but I honestly did not think much about it when I grabbed it off the shelf). I need to do some more thinking ahead of time to come up with a list of different things I should paint before I go. Knowing now that I wouldn’t be able to see my pencil markings, I wouldn’t spend time sketching out the design first.
How will my masterpiece turn out? I have to wait a week to find out.