Today I did some mildly interesting things. One was that I learned about using alcohol inks on acetate panels—apply with a blender pen filled with the alcohol blending solution. And you have to dedicate a blender pen to this use. I’m going to have to get another one so I can do that. I had just dripped colors straight onto the panel, but I don’t like the look around the edges of the drip—too hard for my tastes. (I was doing this on a sunflower collage stamp.) So that’s good to know.
I also got paper today that I’d had in mind for endpapers on a book—but I love it and haven’t used it yet—so I got a new piece (saving my old ones for endpapers when I get around to it). One of the moleskin notebooks I got was marred on the front, so it needed to be covered rather than just decorated. So I used the paper on the cover and think it’s going to turn out well. Right now it’s drying under my book press boards, and tomorrow afternoon I’ll trim down the edges and see how it all looks.
Sitting at my art area and looking around at my stuff, I did feel the familiar paralysis coming over me again. Maybe I need to go back and do some more projects again, where I’m following other people’s instructions. As I do those things, maybe inspiration will strike. I have ideas, half-formed, but when I try to take action—which means deciding what kind of inkpad to use and then what color, and what to stamp on, I just feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin. But then, this is part of why I think this activity is good for me—because I’m forced to make a decision and go with it. I have always hated cutting off options by making decisions, and I think that’s not really a healthy habit. I need to just stamp on something, and if I can’t use it immediately, then it will come in handy sometime in the future. Just DO something!
