I do take commissions periodically, depending upon the request being made.

My youngest has given me a request that I cannot refuse.

He refuses to sleep in his own room due to monsters. Monsters at the window. Monsters in the closet. Monsters under the bed. No amount of monster spray soothes him. No amount of dream catchers or other monster repellents have yet made the room palatable for him to sleep there. He has to have someone with him.

We’ve done a myriad of things to make the room monster-proof.

His new theory is that I need to paint him a series — in his words, a whole bunch — of pumpkins, pumpkins with smiling happy faces. Pumpkins protect people.

If you doubt this in any way, please watch the Dancing Pumpkin. It’s one of our youngest’s most favorite movies.

In this vein, I now have twelve 5×7 canvas panels and ten 8×10 canvases on which to start painting. I even had to buy more paint in order to make sure I had enough orange paint…even though I told him I would probably make different colored happy pumpkins. He is ok with that. We have tons of different Halloween pumpkin decorations–black, silver, white, turquoise, grey…you name it…we probably have it. He gave his ok for that.

I also have one big roughly 18×24 inch wood panel that I may just have to paint him a HUGE (compared to the smaller pieces I will be creating) happy pumpkin that we will display at the headboard of his bed, or at least above it…

What about you? What makes you feel safe in your space?

Let me know in the comments below.