When I tell my elementary students to “roll with it” I’m not usually picturing a bicycle with a basket full of flowers, but I think that this event was the perfect chance to channel that phrase into the flow of our painting session. The barrel room was quite full of ladies who were eager to trace a bike stencil and dab on paint into perfectly shaped roses. But how fun is painting if perfection is the goal?

Instead we found every bushel of flowers to be uniquely shaped and lovely in its own way. Each artist wound up choosing the brushstrokes, the colors to emphasize, and the arrangement of leaves in the mix. With encouragement from me and Kiersten, I sincerely hope that they embraced the experience of creating a one of a kind painting. The results were stunning!