Happy Little Cherry Blossoms

I've previously documented my love of Redskins' Tight End Chris Cooley.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw a post on Facebook last month that his art gallery would be hosting a painting class with Chris as the instructor!

Yes, you read that right. NFL player by day and gallery owner/artist by night, with pottery as his primary medium. He put the clay aside for this event and picked up the paint brush. 

The event was Friday night and my friend Sarah and I went and had SO. MUCH. FUN.  

The class was limited to 20 people and the price included all of the supplies needed for painting, snacks and wine. The goal - to recreate this painting that Chris knocked out that afternoon:

Um, yeah. 

Since paint your own pottery heavily assisted by the use of stencils and bedroom walls are the extent of my painting experience, I did not have high hopes of my finished product even remotely resembling the Tidal Basin in April. 

But, we settled in to give it a shot and surprisingly ended up with good results! 

First Chris demonstrated what to do, then we followed his instructions. 

Chris, painting some happy little clouds

Sarah, working on her own happy clouds

Sometimes it didn't quite go as he explained, like my gigantic, blob like clouds or the huge, yellow blob that was supposed to be a sunset effect.

Cloud blobs to the left, yellow blobs to the right.
Me with no clue how to fix them, standing front and center!

But the awesome thing about getting stuck? Was when that happened I got to say "Chris - can you come help me?" And he did!!

On the outside I was cool and calm. On the inside I was all ***SQUEEEEEEE***

And then, at one point when he was walking past and I was standing in the aisle he touched my back and said "excuse me babe". Swoooon. 

Surreal is really the best way to describe it. 

At times it was easy to forget that the person instructing at the front of the room was a football player I've cheered for on the field for years now, and enjoyed watching and listening to off the field on the local sports reports, weekly check ins on the radio and the hysterical YouTube videos he and others used to put together. 

And at times I could not believe I was standing there with Chris Cooley teaching me how to fix the yellow blob and make it actually look like a sunset. 

But I was. And thanks to Chris' instruction and assistance our finished products weren't so bad! 

My painting

Sarah's painting

The best part is, it would have been a really fun night even without the famous completely adorable football player leading the class. I got to hang out and laugh with one of my best friends, try something new and different and have a cool addition to my art collection as a result. 

Even better - it actually was with the famous and completely adorable football player leading the class!