Feel the rhythm.

deep breath in, dip paintbrush in water. deep breath out, soak up pigment and go. work fast, back and forth between paper and pallet. move the paint around with water, throw a dash the salt, then pause. let paint dry. come back and hope it doesn’t suck. happily surprised by how it turned out - quickly excitement turns to nerves. hope the mixed media won’t ruin a perfectly good start. put pen onto paper and go. up, down, jagged edge, cut back, finish loop. charcoal to edge, kiss the ink line, then shade. sharpen pencil, blow off lead, hard strikes to surface. each mark i worry that i will, fuck it up. with more marks there is less worry and i finally fall into a rhythm. the head noise turns off and composing starts. i flow between sections taking steps back to observe and self-critique: 

feels a bit top heavy, add something to weight the bottom. too sparse, add some hole punched paper. pick through text… nope. nope. nope - back in the bowl… yeah... yeah - this makes sense. glop the glue and press the paper into it to hold.

i work until i have to put the piece on hold. for whatever reason, usually waiting for glue to dry, i put it up and look at it to see the progress. make mental notes of what areas look good and what needs work. then i leave for awhile only to revisit it with a fresh mind.

rinse and repeat.