painting | Lucky Otters Haven

I finally finished my painting projects. Here are two views of my bedroom with its new look!

I also spray painted a old wooden table on the porch–it was bright green but the paint was chipping off so I had to redo it. There was enough spray paint left in the can for one more project.

I had an old glass doorknob (from this house but I can’t reattach it to the closet door it fell from). I think it’s an original doorknob–the house was built in 1908. I needed something on my bathroom wall, and decided to make a towel rack out of it. I took apart a wooden cigar box, painted it, and turned it into a sort of shadow box, with the doorknob epoxied to a mirror at the center. It’s drying now. I can’t wait to hang it in my bathroom!

Nothing like being a shaky, twitchy, anxious, paranoid, angry BPD/C-PTSD in full trigger mode, to get those creative juices flowing. Doing these things really helped me stay in the present and even almost sane.

I don’t do much painting anymore (except painting the walls in my house), but during my 20s and 30s painting–whether on ceramic tiles or canvas–was very relaxing and enjoyable to me. I sold or gave away most of my artwork, but here are two I refuse to part with.

This first painting, which is an interpretation of a National Geographic photo of mountains in the Pacific Northwest, is hanging over my mantel. There’s a dark and rather eerie moodiness to it that everyone always notices but wasn’t present in the original photograph. I didn’t believe them but I remember looking back at the photo I painted this from and realizing how right they were.

I had been married to my ex for two years at this time and I think his subtle abuse was already beginning to take a toll on my state of mind and my soul.

I used to enjoy painting on tiles too. Here’s one I painted in acrylic (before I got a kiln* and started painting with fireable ceramic paint, which are tricky to learn to use because the colors in the jars are not always the colors they’ll be after firing!)

This is actually a depiction of myself and my fiance (the same man who almost destroyed my life for the next 27 years) during the height of his “love bombing.” It was a whirlwind romance, straight out of a storybook or Harlequin romance.

Beware of men (or women) who come on strong with the romance and sweep you off your feet–they are probably predators who have targeted you as prey.

All cynicism aside, I still love this painting and it hangs in my bathroom. We’re shown far away in this idyllic (and idealistic) scene (naked in the pond, naturally!), but I thought the likeness was still pretty accurate.

* I have not had the kiln since 1993. One of my cats at the time, an unfixed male, used it to “mark” and everytime I’d fire it up after that, the smell that permeated the house was unbearable! I couldn’t even sell the thing.