My Mailbox

Last year we had an issue with kids throwing pumpkins at our mailbox. I don't know how many of you suffer from the same disease we do here with regards to no brains and pumpkins, but it's a yearly illness that routinely takes out the mailboxes. Sometimes they get tired of waiting and use a baseball bat -- they've even been known to use a car. But this time, it was a pumpkin. We weren't the only ones struck by the onset of the disease, there were several other mailboxes that suffered a similar fate.

Well -- it was sad news. We had just purchased a new mailbox to replace our old rusting metal one. This new one was black (which wasn't my first choice, but when you are looking for cheap, white is usually more expensive.) and my hubby insisted I paint our name on it. I humored him and painted it up, adding my traditional ladybug, and all. He proudly mounted it on the post we share with our neighbor, and we were happy with life.

Sure enough -- this was the same mailbox that was smashed with a pumpkin. It hit our neighbors as well, but our box took the brunt of it. It took some of the paint off where I'd painted our name, and took the door off, as well as knocking it off the post.

Our first impulse was not to replace it, I mean, I didn't want to keep painting on mailboxes -- what if that was the reason for the pumpkin? (grin) So, we put the old metal one back out there and hoped it would last a while longer.

Surprise, surprise, we found one to replace the black one at a yard sale or DI, I can't quite remember which. The point was, it was like $2 and a little more solid that the other one we'd purchased. Hubby informs me that I need to paint this one too.

This was about six months ago.

That's right...the thing has been sitting in our house, waiting for it's application of paint before it took it's place beside the curb. Well, finally last Saturday, I painted it. I used the new paint hubby gave me for Christmas -- water soluble oil paint.

Now, I usually don't like oil paint. It's messy (I'm a messay painter, usually getting paint on me, clothes, furniture, easel, etc.), the clean up really smells, and it takes FOREVER to dry. But when we found this water soluble (or in other words, clean up is with soap and water) I was excited. There's nothing quite like oil paint for mixing colors and getting a smooth effect. I had forgotten all about it until Saturday.

By the time I was finished, I wanted to go paint something else. I had a very small sampling of colors, as it was a beginning kit, but I was able to do everything I wanted with it, and with a small amount of paint. I'm used to working with acrylic, and I generally go through tubes of the stuff. (This is why they talk about starving artist...supplies are not cheap.)

This is what the side looks like:


And this is what I did on the front:


I thought it turned out rather well, myself. It reminded me alot of tole painting. When I first moved to Utah, my foster mom (which later became my MOM) took me to tole painting classes. She was always doing some kind of crafty or painting thing -- she even took the woodshop class at the local high school, making hope chests for my sisters and a bedside table for me. Anyway, I loved that class. I've pretty much forgotten the real technique, but some of it came back just working with the paint. It was wonderful. sigh.

So now the paint has finally dried...(it only took four days) and I can tell my hubby to stick it out on the stand. I'm just glad it has a few months before the worry of pumpkinitis hits again.

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