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Field notes from a new #tracibautistaCOLOR collection — URBAN PETALS: Concrete Bloom
Published 21 days ago • 3 min read
Reader…
There's a mountain ebony tree on my neighborhood walking route with Indie in LA — bright fuchsia blooms against a golden concrete wall, almost neon, completely unapologetic. I've been walking by it for months, but it just recently caught my eye because of the bright, vibrant PINK blooms.
I’ve been documenting these walks with my camera for months — that tree, chain-link fences swallowed by vines, sweet potato leaves spilling over curbs, sidewalk cracks laced with fallen leaves where something stubborn and green keeps pushing through.
Extracting colors for the palette. Sketching wild blooms in the margins of my field notes sketchbook.
I knew there was a collection in these walks. I could feel it.
The gap between “I feel something” and “here’s the palette, here are the motifs, here’s the story” used to take me weeks. This time, I tried something different.
I opened Claude, hit voice dictation, and just brain-dumped. No typing. No editing. Just talking about what I’m seeing and what it makes me want to make.
Twenty minutes later, I had a full field notes document — color direction, motif families, trend research, and a gut-check question that made me pause: Does this feel like a collection, or is it still a sketch?
The AI didn’t make a single creative decision. It reflected back what I already knew, pulled in research I hadn’t seen (transformative teal is WGSN’s color of the year, and the New York Botanical Garden’s 2026 orchid show is literally called Concrete Jungle — street art meets floral design), and asked the questions that pushed me deeper.
From there, I built a mood board from my own LA walk photos. Pulled the palette directly from the neighborhood. Ran the brief through AI image generation tools for reference imagery. Then opened Procreate and collaged everything together — AI-generated images layered with my own photographs, assembled by hand.
Every creative decision was mine. The tools served as a digital inspiration board. Artist-led, AI-supported.
The result is Urban Petals: Concrete Bloom — a full handcrafted mixed media paint collection inspired by spring as an act of resistance.
The garden that decided it didn’t need your permission to grow.
URBAN PETALS: Concrete Bloom is here.
I brought the full color story into one box, and it‘s a beautiful and bold handcrafted mixed media collection.
My popular limited edition handcrafted artisanal XL watercolor tile is making a guest appearance for the URBAN PETALS collection.
I've put watercolor production on pause for 2026 — this box includes the only release this year.
Eight hand-poured XL watercolor swatches on a ceramic tile, mixed in my studio from the URBAN PETALS palette: that defiant fuchsia, deep indigo pooling like ink on wet paper, a teal that's half ocean and half oxidized copper.
Colors that feel wild and alive.
URBAN PETALS INSPIRATION WALK photo collage mood board
This collection grew from my neighborhood walks in LA — months of documenting what happens when spring decides the city is just another surface to grow through.
A peek inside my creative process…
Inspiration walks photos - took hundreds of photos during my daily walks with Indie
Voice dictation with Claude — brain-dumped the concept using my custom built Collection Reference Muse {I’ll be sharing a demo about this in Thursday’s YouTube live session}
Canva — built the mood board and extracted the color palette from inspiration walk photos
AI tools — generated reference imagery
Procreate — created a digital mashup collaging everything together for the inspiration board
Canva — designed the collection graphics
ClaudeAI — my daily studio assistant and collaborator editing and refining ideas, color names, creative briefs and more
Artist-led, AI-supported — every creative decision was mine. I'll share the full process story soon.
I’ll be sharing the full behind-the-scenes process — every tool, every step, from voice dictation to final collection graphics
Tomorrow I’m going live on YouTube with a behind-the-scenes look at how I used AI to develop a new paint collection.
I’ll walk through the story and do a live demo of the Collection Research Muse — the tool I custom designed that I use to take a creative spark and turn it into a full collection concept.
Check out the resources I share below and sign up for my newsletter! I talk about #tracibautistaCOLOR, my line of handcrafted artisanal watercolors and mixed media products, using an INSPIRATION SKETCHBOOK and Procreate digital canvas in the artistic process. Join my community!
Reader… Every #tracibautistaCOLOR collection starts the same way — with a spark of inspiration. A color. A texture. A place I keep photographing. A motif that shows up in my sketchbook whether I plan it or not. The URBAN PETALS: Concrete Bloom collection started with a tree I'd walked past on my morning walks for months and never really seen — until it bloomed. That single spark became the centerpiece for the color palette, the mood, the name, the product graphics, and eventually a sold-out...
Reader… The URBAN PETALS: Concrete Bloom Collector's Box sold out! I'm still a little in awe of that — every time it happens, it reminds me why I do this work. So first: thank you. Whether you grabbed a box, shared the collection with a friend, or just followed along as the whole thing came together — I appreciate you being here. I want to tell you something about how this collection started. Because it wasn't at the paint making table. If you’ve read my last few emails, you’ll know it...
Reader… A paint collection starts long before the first pigment is mulled. It starts with design — the walks, the thinking, the research, and the inspiration that give the making its direction. The colors are chosen. The mood board is designed. The direction is set. Now comes the part I love most — turning that vision into physical paint. The inks, the PIGMENT BARS, the Wax Printmaking Oil Bars are all next, and the design work you're about to see is exactly what makes that making possible....
