Floral Still Life, Acrylic Painting Class #3, Art

Art of the outside world. National Gallery of Art: Flowers.

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Photo of painting of pink flower with green leaves.

#3 in the series Don’t Quit Your Day Job. I call this – Processing Error.

Class #3
Acrylic Painting with Anthony Best
Shelby County Arts Council
23 July 2026

This time, it looks better IRL. The pinks are richer and the flower looks more textured. I don’t hate it.

Model photo supplied by instructor. Posted with permission. Resized and watermarked for storage space and traceability. Bordered for consistency. [Watermarks Theory]

Of course, my flower bears only a tangential relationship to the model. Pink flower, five petals, leaves, got it. Otherwise, I was flinging paint at the canvas. Instructor kept giving what I’m sure was excellent advice on how to paint what was in front of me. All I could think was, ‘Dude, not happening.’ My brain simply doesn’t process that way. I could see the shading he was pointing to. I could understand what he was saying about it. Taking the next step? Blank space.

Continuing to have fun.

Photo of a blank canvas on a wooden easel.

Start, mainly to admire the pretty wooden easel. Once I began painting, I didn’t notice a difference with the metal ones from previous classes, except that I was more concerned about smearing this one with paint. Kid’s art blurred out in background. An overabundance of caution? Shrug. In a parallel universe, I became the lawyer my father wanted me to be.