I started out by creating the background. In this instance I first mixed watercolor, gouache and waterproof inks which I poured together, allowing them to stream into one another in a random fashion. Waterproof inks tend to repel the other two liquids. Because of this, they can be used to create some wonderful textures and patterns if allowed to act freely against each other on a well-saturated piece of paper. It is a very unpredictable way to start out. Sometimes it takes several tries before I get something usable. In this case I got lucky and achieved an interesting result the first time. However, the background at that point still looked quite undefined. It was necessary to use some good old fashion illusionistic drawing to pull it all into focus. To do this I began to work into the piece very