A couple of days ago, I spent over an hour creating something I wasn’t sure I loved.
I’d been playing with masking tape on my gel plate—lifting prints, stenciling, following curiosity with no agenda. Then I added Posca markers over the gel-plate designs, layer on layer, and tore the tape into pieces with my hands.
I glued them down in horizontal strips across a journal spread: peach and blue and black, black and white … each piece completely different from the next.
It looked interesting. But chaotic.
I collaged over it anyway. Applied medium. Planned to let it rest and come back later. I even started walking out of the studio.
But it pulled me back.
Before the medium had dried, I reached for my paints. My fingers found the color before my mind had a chance to weigh in.
Twenty minutes later, the spread had completely transformed. Magenta blooms, a blue vase, gold light behind everything. The tape still lives underneath; you can see it peeking through if you look closely. But mostly, it has disappeared, absorbed into something I actually love.
And you know what I keep reflecting on? I couldn’t have arrived here without the hour that frustrated me.
“In the midst of chaos, find your calm,” felt like the right way to sum it up.
માનસી
