I saw this on pinterest the other day and immediately wanted to scrawl it across every wall in my apartment with black paint. In some ways, I felt like this statement had become my mantra.
But the ironic thing is, I painted this over the weekend while I was feeling great about things and confident that this deployment was going to fly by. I was making plans to visit apartments in Ventura and starting to think about moving up there on my own this December. It was so easy to create this painting then. I felt so strong and able to power through.
But Tuesday and yesterday morning were a completely different story.
This deployment hit me like a ton of bricks and for the first time since Paul left I really felt like "I can't do this." Except, of course, I am doing it. One way or another, this is going to end and I'll get through it.
As I struggled through the past two days, this painting sat on my dresser and served as a quiet reminder. I spent a lot of time wanting to throw it out a window. But I didn't. And I'm glad for that.
And so moving on… here's what I did to make this text art that ended up making a much bigger statement than I intended.
I knew that I wanted something substantial. I had a square piece of plywood left over from another project and I painted over it with two coats of white glossy wall paint (because that was what I had on hand). Then I used letter stickers from Staples to create the text. I didn't do any measuring here – just eyeballed the placement.
Next, I painted over the stickers with white paint to try and create a seal so the black paint wouldn't creep up under the stickers. I am not sure if this helped or not.
After I painted the white I debated what the second color should be. Eventually I settled on black so it would be more neutral and work in whatever room I decide to hang it in down the line. I didn't have any black wall paint on hand, but I did have some acrylic, so after the white paint dried I brushed some of that on top (after testing on another piece to be sure the black would stick over the glossy white). I used a smaller paint brush and was sure to get full coverage over the letters, but purposely left the edges messy.
After the black had time to dry, I carefully peeled up the letter stickers with an exact-o knife. They came up pretty easily…
…but because of the unfinished texture of my wood, there were lots of leaks in the letters from black paint.
I let it sit for an hour or so to be sure everything was completely dry and then went back over the letters that needed touch-up with white paint and a detail brush. It's not quite perfect, but totally works.
As mentioned, this piece is currently leaning against the wall on my dresser with some other good stuff. For now, I like it there though I think my office will be a good place for it someday too. And in case you're curious, the frame on the left is Crate & Barrel, the silver frame & mat is from West Elm and that large black frame is from Michael's a few years ago. My dresser is from Ikea and I repainted it last January.
This is project 13 of 26. <– halfway done!!
I am attempting to tackle 26 personal craft projects before I turn 27 on 02.22.12. You can follow my progress here on the blog, on pinterest or on flickr.
enJOY it 
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