Today I let yesterday's page rest — no forced direction, just letting it sit until something calls to it. Instead, I pulled out one of my favorite gelli plate pages to play on. But first, I wanted to swatch some crayons to find colors that would work well with the print.

That's when I realized: I'm not as familiar with water-soluble crayons as I'd like to be. So instead of avoiding them, I decided to lean in — make all the mistakes, get to know the medium properly. Today's whole session turned into a swatch page, working through wet and dry techniques. I lost 40 minutes just playing.

Sometimes the "real" work is giving yourself permission to just get curious about a tool.