It’s here! Take a look inside VINTAGE ALOHA 🌺


Hello creative friend!!

Yesterday, I shared the first peek at the story behind my new ninth-anniversary collection.

Today, NINE: VINTAGE ALOHA is officially here! 🌺🎨

Nine years ago today, on August 31, 2017, I shared the photo below on Instagram. It showed tiny bottles from my color lab and announced that #tracibautistaCOLOR was coming soon.

I first learned how to make watercolor paint in 2010 from my good friend and artist Karen Michel. Then, in 2017, I decided kind of on a whim that I wanted to launch my own handcrafted paint business.

At the time, I was developing limited-edition artisan inks made for mixed media, mark making, sketching, lettering, and PLAYing in sketchbooks and art journals.

Little did I know that one post would lead to more than 50 sold-out limited-edition collections of my handcrafted inks and paints.

Since then, I’ve handcrafted thousands of bottles of ink, watercolor pans, and PIGMENT BARS, shipped orders around the world, and grown a successful line of wax paints.

So much of that original idea is still at the heart of #tracibautistaCOLOR: limited-edition collections, handcrafted color, studio experimentation, and materials designed to inspire your own creative process.

And today, on the exact anniversary of that first announcement, I’m adding a new chapter with NINE: VINTAGE ALOHA.

Only 25 VINTAGE ALOHA Collector’s Boxes are being handcrafted, and a handful are already spoken for.

HERE’S WHAT’S INSIDE:

🌺 TWO duotone confetti PIGMENT BARS in exclusive VINTAGE ALOHA colorways

🌺 TWO coordinating 20ml watermedia inks, including one mineral wash and one classic formulation

🌺 ONE multicolor watercolor pan, hand-poured with three to four colors and topped with metallic flakes

🌺 ONE large WAX DRAWING STICK, a brand-new handcrafted medium making its debut in this collection

🌺 ONE CONFETTI cake wax medium mini for mixing, extending, and creating textured effects with your PIGMENT BARS

🌺 A mixed-media paper sampler

🌺 A mark-making kit

🌺 A Collector’s Digital Kit filled with the color story, printable swatch cards, inspiration, palette origins, and studio notes

🌺 A live 90-minute VINTAGE ALOHA workshop where we’ll explore fabric painting, mixed-media collage, mark making, layering, and color PLAY

AND SOMETHING COMPLETELY NEW…

The WAX DRAWING STICK is a wax-rich medium I’ve been quietly developing in the studio.

It’s made for expressive mark making, layering, resist work, and experimenting across a variety of surfaces. Each stick comes in a kraft cardboard tube and is finished with layers of colorful confetti wax.

This is the first time it has ever been available to the public.

COLLECT NINE: VINTAGE ALOHA

I can’t wait to see where these colors, marks, layers, and materials travel next!

Only 25 NINE: VINTAGE ALOHA Collector’s Boxes are being made.

P.S. I’ll share more about the Collector’s Box during my YouTube LIVE on Thursday, September 3 at 3pm PT. We’ll also celebrate nine years of #tracibautistaCOLOR with past collections, paint-making journals, and colorful studio stories. Set a reminder and join me LIVE on Thursday →

With creativity and color...

Artfully, xo Traci Bautista 💞 Founder, #tracibautistaCOLOR

If you have any questions reach out to customer care using the chat box at tracibautistacolor.com

#tracibautistaCOLOR, Danville, California 94526
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Hi! I'm Traci Bautista.

I make small-batch handcrafted artisanal paints and PIGMENT BARS and teach artists to build a cohesive body of work and a visual creative brand using artist-led AI tools. Founder of Ideation PLAYground + AI-Powered Studio. Resources + newsletter below.

Read more from Hi! I'm Traci Bautista.
#tracibautistaCOLOR handcrafted artisanal watercolors

Hello creative friend!! I’ve been pulling out past collections, looking through old swatches, and flipping through paint-making journals as I prepare for Thursday’s #tracibautistaCOLOR anniversary LIVE. It has been so much fun seeing how the color stories, products, and studio experiments have evolved over the past nine years. #tracibautistaCOLOR handcrafted watercolor pans & tiles I’ll share more of those past collections in a moment, but first, I wanted to take you a little closer into some...

#tracibautistaCOLOR WAX.PAINT.PLAY workshop

#tracibautistaCOLOR Studio Notes July 2026 Monotypes with #tracibautistaCOLOR PIGMENT BARS & WAX printmaking bars Reader... Hi creative friend! There’s a silicone mat on my counter, the kind meant for keeping food warm, set to 176 degrees. A piece of rice paper sits on top, warm to the touch. I scribble a #tracibautistaCOLOR PIGMENT BAR onto the surface and flip it over onto the melted wax, roll a brayer across, and lift a multicolor line of wax at once. This process is an artful, meditative...

WAX monotypes with #tracibautistaCOLOR PIGMENT BARS and WAX printmaking bars

#tracibautistaCOLOR Studio Notes July 2026 Inspiration. PLAY. Resources. Marks. Monotypes with #tracibautistaCOLOR PIGMENT BARS & WAX printmaking bars Reader... Hi creative friend! There’s a stack of WAX painted papers on my studio table right now and I keep walking past it just to look. Deep Midnight Blue. Vibrant bright fuchsia. Pickled Plum. Abstract mark making and freestyle URBAN FLORALS. A mix of colorful layered wax paintings and monotypes pulled from a heated mat over the last couple...