painting

So my hubby recently saw a nautical map of Cape Cod with a painted image ( probably of some sort of US Coast Guard plane) on it and since we are a USCG family and have a nautical guest room decided he wanted one to put up framed in there as wall art. That was all well and good, and I was impressed he was interested in decorating :), until we saw the price to buy one. Well I happen to be somewhat artistic, more crafty and so he bought two of these nautical maps and gave them to me ( stating that one was in case I messed up, knowing my lack of confidence, but really thanks for the vote of confidence, lol, he tried to dig out of the proverbial hole by saying one was for me to sell if I decided I really enjoyed doing them!). Anyways I got to work in a sketch book and tried to draw the lighthouse he picked out ( I guess because a plane would be too difficult?) I don't know if it is my complete and utter lack of spacial intelligence that hinders me or some other lack of intelligence that hinders me, but for the life of me I cannot look at something and draw it. So when I showed him my drawing I wasn't surprised when he found things to tweak on it and didn't seem excited for me to draw on one of the actual maps, nor was I excited to. I let them sit in my craft room secretly hoping they'd magically vanish, if I ignored them, intimidated by what they represented me having to do! I saw something about a month ago, something that took me back to my childhood as an assistant principal's kid. Since my mom worked in the school I was able to use the opaque projector as a child for my school projects (and loved every minute of it), well I saw that they now made smaller, less accurate, less expensive versions! I half jokingly told the hubbs that if we bought one I would do his Cape Cod nautical maps and forgot about it. Well he did buy me one and so I started to work drawing ( okay okay your right, I was simply tracing) the chosen lighthouse onto the map the other night, then I got to painting it last night. I haven't painted since my High School art classes, and had forgotten just how relaxing and enjoyable painting was and how because I am so cautious in life I was actually good at it, getting into the tight spots, but really enjoyed the larger spaces as well because I could paint with reckless abandon ( within the lines :P). So after all of this rambling you are dying to see it aren't you?!? Well here are a few pics of my  first night of painting, it is not done yet but I will post more pics later! oh and by the way when I was in art class I got blessed with an art teacher who didn't compare the students' abilities to each other because if she had I would have failed. I loved watching others' do their masterpieces and always left feeling like I was an elementary level artist and all my peers were in college art and I walked into the wrong room. I say this to say that when I posted the pics on my FB wall a few of the kids from those art classes, who were far superior, actually liked my pics! I have included the pic that I traced from and am using as a reference, I don't think I want the yellowy color on the light house as is in the pic. Thanks for looking, I'd love for you to leave me comments!