I know I should not be surprised by now about how just starting, even without motivation, works with creative practice, but I am. I have not been feeling well, and procrastinated in doing today’s #DailyArtDevotions #artjournal pages. But, I started with something easy – chaos – and then my creative mind took over and two hours later, I had created something I love.

For chaos, I sprayed water onto watercolor paper and then dropped several different colors of Bombay ink onto the page. This is a process that always makes me a little crazy because it never quite goes the way I want. I add too much water, too little water, too much ink, too little ink…you get the idea. Hence the representation of creative chaos.

Then an idea to put one of my favorite sketches on it as a representation of calm emerged. But it just didn’t work because keeping it on sketchbook paper would have completely covered the chaos page.

So, I decided to trace my sketch on tracing paper with my beloved blue sketch pencil, but that didn’t work because the blue pencil was too light and the mermaid was not visible over the chaos page. So, I decided to go back and trace over the traced sketch with a black technical pen. That worked.

I wasn’t sure how to affix my calm sketch over my chaos watercolor. I have tried to glue tracing paper before but did not have good results. I remembered I had some beach-themed washi tape and found the perfect one.

I love what emerged: a beautiful representation of calm over chaos.