I’m taking my first painting class. Acrylics. Phrases like “Baby’s First Painting” or “Baby’s First Paint Set” keep running through my head. They publish books with titles like that, don’t they? Anyway, regardless of whether or not I prove to have any talent, I’m finding that this is a peaceful and interesting activity. Since my aim is ultimately to paint abstracts (of course!), I’m much more pleased with the appearance of the “palette” from tonight’s messing around than I am with the actual painting. (That messing-around painting is not shown above, in case you’re puzzling over the colors. The top photo shows what is supposed to look like a sphere, painted the first night in class, and what is supposed to look like an apple, which I painted last night in order to practice a bit with dimension in color.) I’m thinking that I could put different colors of paint in a paper bowl, blend them in different ways, photograph them, and just skip the applying-them-to-canvas part. This class may not set me on the road to becoming a painter in a traditional sense, but it may give me a new way of being an artist.