Starting out.....learning the basics!

OK so we arrived at 10 am for our first Chinese painting lesson - three foreign girls. I myself have zero painting ability, so the teacher has his work cut out! Better not comment on the ability of the others in case they sue lol! The first thing we had to do was drink tea - naturally! Then, we watched our teacher paint, he painted us each a trio of shrimps........ok this doesn't look TOO bad was the first thought........then we had more tea..........then we finally got to hold a brush......aaarghhh! Not as easy as it looks! Kinda like the first time I tried chopsticks....There is a definite technique! And of course, being a leftie in China always attracts attention - and I realised it was like learning to write all over again, I have to reverse what I see!
Christine chose to start with calligraphy and myself and Laura chose to paint. I haven't painted for years and I never really enjoyed it when I was younger as I wasn't any good. But this looks like it could be more interesting than 3rd year art which is the last time I got to do much! (I have tried a bit of watercolour but not too much!)
The first task we had was to paint flowers and learn to paint them at different angles! We got to learn how to hold the brush for different strokes ------nightmare! It was harder than it looked but we did have some fun. Then we moved on to paint twigs, again we thought easy but NO !!!!! lol. Anyway I am hooked and so today we went to an art shop to buy supplies....we managed to find a book like the one we had used and so we can practise on our own! Showed the boys my first attempts and they seem impressed. I think a few more people are coming tomorrow, I am really looking forward to it.
We are trying colour painting tomorrow....looks good when he does it!