Reader…

There’s something about watching someone you love and have known your whole life step fully into their work.

My cousin — cinematographer, artist, creator — is being featured in Vogue and the New York Times ahead of the Oscars. The work is extraordinary. The moment is earned. And watching it happen, I keep thinking about what it actually takes to get there.

Not the red carpet part. The other part.

The years of making. The documentation of a practice. The evidence of who you are as an artist — accumulated over time, in sketchbooks and swatch pages and stacks of work that prove you know your own hand.

That’s the thread I keep pulling this week.

Because documenting your creative process — really documenting it, in a way that builds a body of work you can return to — is one of the quietest, most powerful things you can do as an artist. It doesn’t feel glamorous. But it’s the thing that makes the glamorous moment possible.

More on that in a minute. First — congratulations to my brilliant and beautiful cousin Autumn. I’m so proud of you. 🥰

〰️ SWATCH CARDS IN THE WILD

I’ve been getting questions about the Paint + Swatch Journal Experience — specifically about the physical journal kit and how people are actually using the swatch cards once they have them.

I hosted a live stream to showcase how I use the cards in action — not just what they look like, but how I use them to document the process and play with color. I also shared a demo of some of the new URBAN PETALS Procreate brush sets. These create beautiful floral inspired collage sheets in under a minute that you can use in your sketchbooks, art journals or junk journals.

​Watch the replay →​

The swatch cards are inspiration. They’re creative process documents. Mine live tucked into my sketchbooks, taped into journal spreads, propped up next to whatever I’m mixing. They’re reference and inspiration at the same time.

→ Digital Experience | → Journal Kit |

(all available now — grab yours and I’ll see you in the video)

〰️ MY COUSIN + THE OSCARS

I’m going to gush for a second. Bear with me.

If you haven’t heard, Autumn Durald Arkapaw is a brilliant cinematographer who is nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography for her amazing work and visual storytelling for Sinners and she is the fist woman of color to be nominated!!

I’m beyond thrilled and couldn’t be more proud of her and she was recently featured on the cover of Vogue Philippines and in the New York Times. If you haven’t seen the pieces, go look. Her work speaks for itself.

What strikes me — beyond the beauty of it — is the documentation.

There’s a trail of creative decisions, references, and intentions behind everything she and her team shot for the movie and it was incredible. You can see it, even when she doesn’t explain it out loud.

Visual storytelling that makes you forget you’re at the movies. The stunning visuals of this movie were breathtaking and my favorite scene was the music anthology in the juke joint…sooo good!

That’s what a developed creative practice looks like from the outside. Coherent. Intentional. Unmistakably hers.

That’s what I want for you too.

Not the Oscars. (Although, why not.) The clarity of a creative practice that’s undeniably yours — one that has a trail you could follow back to yourself on the hard days.

My family and I are in LA this weekend to celebrate Autumn and fingers crossed she makes history tonight as the first woman of color to bring home the home the Oscar for Best Cinematography! 🙌🤗

〰️ A QUESTION FOR YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS

This week I want to ask you something simple. You don’t have to answer out loud — just sit with it.

How do you document your creative process right now?

Not what you wish you did. What you actually do.

Do you photograph your work? Write in a sketchbook? Keep a Notion page? Leave sticky notes on your studio wall? Or does it mostly live in your head, and you find yourself starting over from scratch more often than you’d like?

There’s no wrong answer here. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this — about what it means to build an actual record of your practice, one that accumulates into something you can reference, teach from, and return to.

I’m hosting a free live session on Thursday, March 26 to dig into exactly this — using AI as a writing collaborator to help you document your creative process and start building Studio Notes Journals. It’s part of my AI Experiments Lab series, and it’s open to everyone on this list. I’m giving you a peek inside one of my monthly Ideation PLAYground live sessions for FREE!

More details + the sign-up link coming next week. For now — just sit with the question.

How are you documenting your practice? And is it working?

〰️ SOMETHING I’M BUILDING IN THE STUDIO

I’ve been building something new — and it’s still rough around the edges, which is exactly why I want to show you.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been experimenting with Claude by Anthropic to develop a companion app for Ideation PLAYground students.

Think of it as an interactive studio space — creative prompts, color palette tools, collection tracking, Studio Notes — all in one place, built around my methodology.

This is still a work in progress. But here’s a peek at what the architecture looks like right now:

I’ll share more as it develops. For now, I just wanted you to see that this is how I work — I build in real time, I show the messy middle, and I document as I go.

(Which, yes, connects back to everything I said about my cousin and the question I asked you above. It’s all the same thread.)

If you’re curious about this kind of AI studio practice — the artist-led, AI-supported version that protects your voice while expanding what’s possible — that’s exactly what we’ll explore on March 26th. Save the date.

That’s what’s on my worktable this week.

A celebrated designer who earned every bit of her moment. Swatch cards living their best life inside real studio practice. A question I’m genuinely curious about your answer to. And a half-built app that I’m having way too much fun making.

More from the studio soon. ✦

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P.S. The free AI Experiments Lab session is March 26th — sign-up link coming next week. If you want a heads-up the moment it’s live, just hit reply and say “I’m in” and If you want to share how you are documenting your creative practice, I’d love to know. And, I’ll make sure you’re first to know about the live sessions. Happy Oscars Weekend!! 🤗

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