The Power & Pleasure of Paint

I grew up surrounded by paint. Cans and cans of paint. Not artist’s paint, commercial grade paint. And empty cans filled with paint stir sticks, and brushes. The basement work bench carried an odor of turpentine and varsol.  Colour chips graced the work bench and when new ones were issued by whichever company my father was a representative for at the time, I was allowed to use the old ones in my childish artistic creations. We even had a paint mixing machine. I was allowed to use that with supervision if there was leftover paint and I wanted to see what colour combinations I could create. Whatever I created I was given to paint on whatever I felt needed a new look, apart from my sister and the dog of course. Everything else, if it was mine, was fair game.

My sister and I were always allowed to choose the colour for our bedroom when a refresh was needed (needed or not it seemed to happen yearly) which could be tricky as we shared a room and our taste in colour varied greatly. The final decision often came down to a coin toss. The only time we agreed was when we wanted orange walls. Nothing soft like a peach, no we went into the industrial section of the colour chart and chose bright orange, traffic cone orange and with that we wanted a black ceiling. We had our hearts set on that combination. I was fourteen, she was eleven. Alas our creative vision ended up a wash with an empathic “no” from both parents and the walls ended up violet, the ceiling white. That one was not of our choosing. And it was the last time we shared a room that needed painting. Our parents divorced a few years after that and not only did our father leave, so did all that wonderful paint, and those delightful paint chips.

I’m happy when I’m painting. Certainly, in an artistic approach, however, objects and walls often need to be refreshed and when the mood strikes I’m either off collecting samples or digging through leftovers to see what I can produce. I’m not averse to applying a little alchemy and creating my own colours either.

A few weeks ago, it was a picture frame. Bought the item at an antique store years ago and as I’ve changed the colour and décor in the room where it hangs I keep trying to make the picture “fit” which has entailed painting the frame, being dissatisfied with it, sanding it, painting it again until I finally found some old paint in a barnwood brown that seems to be what I was looking for. For now.

Last week it was a candle holder. I had an idea about needing something midsize, round, a dark wood. I had the place for it and spent days looking for what I could see in my mind’s eye. Nothing doing. As often happens, I’ll picture something and only find it when I’ve moved on to another idea. But as I walked through the thrift store I saw a shape. I saw a size. I saw that it was ceramic and that it was a very bold shiny gold. Not what I wanted. But I picked it up anyway because I knew it had the potential to be what I was looking for. And if it wasn’t then I would donate it back to the thrift store and keep looking. It was worth a $4.00 gamble. And paint that I already had somewhere in my collection.

After sanding parts of the candle holder to remove the shine and giving it a bit of a worn, old patina, I began to apply paint. I started with a coat of black. Once that was dry I went in with brushed antique gold, dabbing it on with a sponge brush, smoothing it and then rubbing it off in spots with a soft cloth.

It’s still ceramic and if I drop it, it’s sure to break. It doesn’t look like the wood I envisioned, but it does look old. I like that I can still see marks that were left from the sandpaper. It looks like it was meant to look and as I placed something on top to see if it was going to work I put down the soft cloth, stood back, hands on hips and said, “you’re exactly what you need to be.” For now.