Finding  the exotic in the familiar is what sketching and journaling can offer.  Here is a small watercolor painting on paper that I did shortly after arriving in Tucson, Arizona.  I undertook a 3+ year process of obtaining a PhD in Art History and Education at the University of Arizona, beginning in 2013.  Displacing myself in this way allowed me to take a fresh look at what was new and exotic through my eyes, yet was mundanely familiar to the locals.  How can an artist not see the beautiful nuances of color and texture in a cactus and not be compelled to make a rendering? How can I not have reveled daily in the beautiful Black Hills that surrounded me in my home state of South Dakota? Recording that which was new and exotic to me helped remind me of that there is much beauty everywhere, including my own back yard.