That's method, not function -- let's be OO purists.  :-)

Actually, you should not generally override paint() in a Swing
component.  You might be interested in a good page on the topic at
<http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/painting/index.html>.  In
fact, it might even offer clues to the actual source of your trouble.

Without detailed code samples and other things, I can't do much more
than speculate, but it may be that opacity is involved in this as well.  
Once you read that article, you'll understand what paint() actually does
in Swing -- which is to paint the component itself, then its border,
then its children.  Swing components, as subclasses of JComponent, all
have the setOpaque(boolean) method.  This lets you create a contract
between the RepaintManager and your Swing component indicating whether
or not you'll draw the entire background when painted.  Judicious use of
this call, and a good understanding of what happens when it's true or
false, could help to get you where you want to be.

= Steve =