Saturdays are the most important day of the week for a college student. It’s the one day of the week where you can escape the chaos of the library and separate yourself from all your assignments due the following week. Saturday should be a break for you. A day where you get to spend some much needed time with your friends and venture places off campus.
I don’t know about you, but after a while I always need to slip away from the campus bubble. That is, realizing that that there is much more to the world than papers, grades, and midterms. Adventuring into the “other world” is a very therapeutic way to calm oneself down from the high strung college life. Last weekend, my best friend and I did exactly that. We went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and painted! There was just something very calming and peaceful about laying in a field of grass, and letting the wind brush against our skin, as we spent the afternoon painting our thoughts.
After our little Saturday adventure, I thought that this was truly an ideally spent day. In the end we both created these acrylic abstract pieces of art work, that are now proudly hung in our rooms. We both found this to be so much fun, which has lead me to write this list to share with you everything we did and brought to have this artistic enlightening adventure!
Bring paintbrushes, plastic spoons and plastic knives.
You obviously need paintbrushes in order to create your abstract work of art, but by using spoons and knives you can create cool designs and swirls in your painting. This can help give your painting more texture and three-dimensionality to it.
You need something to paint on!
The fun thing here is that you can paint on anything, whether it be on a canvas (which is what we did) or a t-shirt, bring whatever you want to decorate! Some other ideas of what you could paint on are bowls, your ked shoes, a notebook, a poster, your phone case, the list literally can go on and on. Just be creative!
Gotta bring that paint along.
So when it comes to paint, I’m a faithful acrylic artist, but you can easily use oil and/or watercolor. Water color though, is more strictly for paper or any soft material. Oil, and especially acrylic have a much stronger durability and will usually last longer and produce more vivid colors and tactile textures, but then again use whatever you want depending on what you are painting!
Have to bring those mason jars
Mason jars are honestly one of the most artsy looking accents to painting. They’re cool first of all, because they are clear, so you can see the water change colors every time you twirl your brushes around. They as well look great in photos. Plus, you’re going to need to have something to hold your paint water in, so might as well bring it along! You can find mason jars at Michaels and Hobby Lobby.
A comfy blanket to sit on, that you don’t mind getting too dirty.
I mean you definitely don’t need a blanket to sit on, but after I while the grass can get a little itchy. You can use an old blanket, or an old towel, anything that will be ok if you get a few (more like a lot) of paint smudges on it.
Wear a white shirt
I think it’s so cool to wear a white shirt, because of course you are bound to get paint on it, which means you will leave wearing some of your own artwork! (looks artsy in photos as well)
Play with the paint
There is no correct way to paint! You never need to ask “Am I doing this right?” because there is no right way! Move the paint around with your fingers if you want, do whatever floats your boat! What I did to get the cool drippy splatter effect was pour big globs of paint on the canvas and take a spoon and lightly touch the top of the bubble of paint, while flicking the spoon out, which creates this sprinkle paint effect. You can also hold the canvas and move it around, letting the paint mix with the other colors, to create this sumptuous colorful mixture!
Take A LOT of photos!!!!!
My friend and I always manage to turn our adventures into photo shoots. I mean why not take photos of you creating cool art and spending a beautiful day outside. You have to document a little bit of it! But don’t let that take away from you enjoying the beautiful day outside.
XOXO Rach