Roger Moroney: My roof painting days are over

Roger Moroney decided it was time to get some help when it comes to painting. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

Painting, yes there is an art to it.

You look at the classic images created by classically revered painters and you start to wonder.

How did they create that?

Who taught them?

What are the secrets in their mind's eyes?

And could they paint a garage door?

On that note, I have to be firm on one thing…no way I would have allowed Salvador Dali to paint our house.

His brilliance is best on canvas.

Painting is older than brushes, for the very first artists used their hands to smear coloured patterns on walls.

This is a unique art form which endures today…give a 2-year-old a dollop of paints and they will smear it upon anything in reach.

Oh yes, the art of painting.

You don't have to be a Picasso or a Da Vinci or a Banksy wannabe to be a painter today, for taking up the brush, and a pot of paint, is almost a rite of passage.

As a lad I helped dad do some painting once and he could see I possessed a real determination…to spill the stuff.

Today when I paint something it's not just the "something" I paint but also anything around it.

I have two pairs of sneakers which are adorned in pretty coloured spots from painting ventures through the years.

Painting pursuits which also left ants running for cover on the ground below the weatherboards and window trims I was acrylicly assaulting.

And I have a weary old pair of dark jeans which possess several even darker spots upon them…spots of black felt pen I dabbed on to hide the light splatters of paint.

Once upon a time, back when I could climb a ladder and leap upon a roof in about seven seconds (now it is in minutes) I joined my three brothers in painting our mum's old house…the house we had all grown up in (well we tried to grow up).

It would have been round the early '80s I suspect and the plan was simple.

Roger Moroney

It was a weary old stucco house so we'd blast it with the hose, and give it a rub down with the broom, then another blast with the hose, then wait for it to dry, then get stuck in.

It was high summer so no worries with the weather, and perfect drying conditions.

So yep, we all gathered around 10 in the morning and sort of got started.

By 11 we'd done the "preparation" and were waiting for the far side (out of the sun) to completely dry.

"What d'ya reckon?" the eldest of my brothers asked.

"Quick couple of cold ones and then we'll get stuck in?"

The answers were along the lines of "my oath" and "bewdy".

So two hours later, refreshed, we tore into it…and did a pretty good job.

Then around 4 in the arvo big bro' again posed the question "what d'ya reckon?"

It was a long day, but we had got the job done.

Not like the time when as a teenager I helped my store-working colleague paint the roof of his digs.

No preparation, just "fire it on and she'll be right" which worked beautifully until it began to rain just after noon.

It made pretty patterns on the wet brushstrokes we had created.

"Oh near enough's good enough," my deflated cobber sighed.

Oh, and I once painted our old Humber '90 car back around 82 or so.

Two-tone blue…and I brushed it on.

Looked a real picture…from a distance.

A picture even Salvador would have applauded.

So entering the spring of '21 it had come to the time to get the roof painted again and with age (and common sense) against me we got a couple of great chaps round to do it…and they left a few litres behind which made my day as I've got four or five tired but able old brushes in the shed.

So I'm doing the garage door and part of that roof now and put it this way, the early ants of spring are running for cover.

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off centre.