Happiness...Love...Peace

Almost two years ago we had new windows put in. When I requested that the old windows remain intact as I wanted to keep them, I was met with strange looks. At that time I didn't know what I was going to do with them, but I knew it would come to me. Luckily we have an auto repair shop that doubles as a wood shop so the 15 undamaged ones could blend in and not be in anyone's way while I decided where they would end up. This is what the majority of them looked like before removal...

The first thing I did was scrape any loose paint off of it. Next I spray-painted the wooden frame black. Very messy as I got a defective can, or maybe it was me. I'm the sloppiest hair dyer I know, and it seems I'm the same way with painting. After the black dried, I painted over it with a gray/white/black speckled stone texture paint. It reminded me of a city street. I thought photos of New York City in each pane of glass would look great. Scrape the glass. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to fix the photo to the glass without seeing adhesive. Scrape the glass. I tried many different possibilities until the last one -- placing the photo on the inside glass and painting over it to make it stick while giving it a frosted border. It bled through. Picture ruined. Scrape the glass.

I knew I would need to paint the glass instead. I'm not an artist in the pure sense of the word, but that never has stopped me from creating. When I looked at the frame again Japanese letters popped out at me. Yes, it would look cool with black Japanese lettering amid a frosted pane. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a Japanese character set of stencils. Happiness...Love...Peace.

Without boring you with all the mishaps I had...scrape the glass happened about five more times until I finally got to the point I almost wanted to get to. And here it is...

After doing something I should have done as soon before I embarked on this project...GTS (Google That Shit)...I watched a Youtube video which imparted some great info and tips. I'm looking forward to getting to the next one. And who knows...maybe I'll be able to sell some at the shop. Heck, it'll be a better mark-up than the 35 cent royalty I get on my short story!

Besides, sometimes you need to take a break from what you normally do in order to get the creative juices flowing. Right now the painting muse is with me while the writing one is nowhere to be found...and that's okay with me. So if you don't see me on-line as much as I used to be, you know why. And it feels good to be unplugged.