Once again, I actually accomplished quite a lot since last week's writing, but it's hard to remember it all today. I've slept since then so I've forgotten everything!
On Sunday I finally--FINALLY!--took the mat cutter out of the box it's been in for over 6 months, put it together, practiced with scrap mat, and used it to make my very first custom mat! It was quite a process! Despite using the written instructions and watching tutorial videos, I got frustrated at multiple points. And there's more math than I was expecting, for calculating where to cut. I'm not convinced yet that it was a brilliant investment, but I guess time will tell.
Still, learning the mat cutter was one of my goals for 2021, so I have officially accomplished 1.5 of them now! I should be proud of myself for achieving so much this early in the year! This also meant that I finished my MIL's custom art over the past weekend. It looked very snazzy with its custom mat!
Side note, taking pictures of art once it's behind glass or plexiglass is very difficult! It's nearly impossible to not get glare or to see your reflection in it. I always mean to take the glass out, photograph it, then replace the glass but never actually remember to in the moment. I'm always too eager for the final product.
I was happy with what I came up with for my MIL's piece. Trying to incorporate those colors in one watercolor palette knife abstract was very difficult. I think it worked out great in the end to take the red and make it a collage aspect--I cut out flower shapes from heavily textured paper, and pinned two of them together with brads. It ties together nicely with her existing decor, while also using some of my "signature" techniques. Here's a final pic of it hanging on her wall:
I also felt brave and painted on a larger piece of paper this week, 17x24 inches. Not quite a full sheet still, but larger than usual for me. I need to do it more often, because it is always a learning experience. It takes so much more paint to fill paper that large!
I stuck with my 100 Days Project for another week, but again I didn't do a lot more than that. Maybe that's what I need to come to terms with for now--I'm painting much more consistently due to the daily project, but I'm not producing a lot of additional work. It's consistency over volume right now. I also noticed that I was happier with my work if I spent time warming up before trying to tackle finishing paintings. It's hard balancing all this.
So overall, I accomplished some major goals this week! I'm repeating this again for myself, because I tend to focus on the fact that I didn't create any finished paintings I'm happy with. But it's unrealistic to expect that every day, or even every week. I still did some good, tough work, even if it was somewhat tangential to the actual act of painting.
