How I Became An "Artist" For A Night

If you have a dog, you get to know lot of other dog lovers. So happened that I met one of my Hungarian friends living in Barcelona who invited me to a fantastic event called ‘Paint your Dog’ last weekend. She owns a Hungarian vizsla so her task was easier because a vizsla only has one color while Bella has at least three. Her belly is white, her back is black and so is part of her ear with a little bit of brown and white in it, and there are those little freckles on her face, of course. Besides her tongue is always out. The special collars cannot be left out from the picture either. So, it was not enough that I can’t paint, the outlines and coloring were also a challenge.

I was really looking forward the evening, but at the same time I was a bit afraid because drawing was never my strength. In fact, even drawing a stick figure can be a challenge sometimes. The evening was advertised to take four hours, starting after siesta and in Mediterranean style, of course, with a little wine and tapas* so that we don’t just work all the time.

The studio is run by an American couple. It is a very nice place downtown, not far from Sagrada Familia. As the event’s title was ‘Paint your dog’ and they expected dog-lovers mostly, we could take our models with us. It didn’t even occur to me to leave Bella out of all this, so at six o’clock we walked towards Arte Bar. To my great surprise Bella was the only dog-guest present.

The only other dog was the owners’ golden retriever, Nelly. Bella did not mind it for a minute, to the contrary. She enjoyed the exclusive attention as she loves being in the center. She was really having a great time. Since everyone was a dog owner, I could let her loose as no one did mind if she went near. Actually, everyone liked it.

So, while I was working on my painting, Bella didn’t stop for a second. She was showing off to anyone who would watch her and she expected a reward in return from the other participants who were eating snacks. My friend and I brought a bottle of delicious rosé with us hoping that it would wake our dormant talents and so it did.

During the evening we received instructions about how to start our drawing, how to mix colors and what kind of brush we should use. In spite of the instructions I was a bit afraid to start as the last time I held a brush in my hand was fifteen years ago. Eventually, I started to get the hang of it and was very satisfied with the end result. Given that it was the first time I tried something like this, my painting turned out quite well and we all enjoyed the evening.

The four hours that I thought would be quite long to spend with painting really went by fast. It was a very pleasant weekend event and I am sure that we will go again in the future.

More info: bellavoyage.dog