Bright colors, mixed with water.

My big sister gave me one of the best gifts I ever received as a child. A Crayola Caddy.

Now, my sister held a reputation among us, her younger siblings, of being the coolest one, mainly due to her incredible generosity. At a time when my parents counted every penny & saw any unnecessary expenditure as a frivolity, an extravagance, my sister used her earnings from working at Burger King to gift us things that brought delight. Cool things. Things she knew we really wanted.

Two major gifts from my sister stand out in memory from my growing-up years. The first took the form of a My Little Pony castle, which I can discuss in another post. The second appeared as that dazzling Crayola Caddy, a plastic art supply organizer that seemed the coolest thing ever to a child doodler & dilettante painter. My equivalent of Ralphie’s Red Rider BB Gun.

The famed Crayola Caddy.

When I opened it, I squealed. The caddy came with a set of art supplies to fill it, including poster paints, watercolors, brushes, markers, colored pencils, & yes… Crayons! There were water troughs for cleaning your paintbrushes & an attached sharpener for keeping your crayons & pencils ready for use. And you could mix media or change which medium used based on your mood.

A lover of aesthetic beauty, I thrilled at the idea of having my own compact art station. And it belonged to me.

Watercolor palette.

The medium that enticed me the most were the watercolors. I don’t know if it had to do with the mutability of color as you added more water or pigment, blotted paper with tissue or used wax, or if the idea of the water itself as a creative force attracted my fascination.

Maybe it seemed non-committal to me, like I could add water or blot up color from the page. That offered a kind of artistic freedom. And I just thought the layering effect of applying different strokes to blend & shape colors on the page unique & symbolic.

The kind of watercolor set found in most schoolrooms for art classes.

So much depended on materials, too. The quality of the brushes, thickness & type of bristles, the quality of the paper, heavy stock with tooth or texture, & the flow of the water & pigment mix. Care had to be invested in keeping pure pigments pure, since darker colors could easily bleed into & ruin the lighter colors in the palette permanently. The worst of that resulted in a muddy mess that rendered all colors the same.

And for whatever reason, I preferred to keep those lighter colors like yellow or white clear of contaminants; I kept a watchful eye on the paint to prevent destroying those lighter colors. Per routine, I made sure the art supplies were clean before leaving my work space.

Dried pigments.

Watercolors largely came in either of two forms: 1) Pressed, dried pigment ordered in a tray of options. 2) Tubes contained pastes of pigments, which offered more color control to the trained mixer. I preferred the old-school pressed pigment.

The type of brush produces the desired effect.

After use, cleaning & storage of brushes carry import for maintaining the integrity of tools.

Ultimately, introverts need to find creative outlets as a release or coping strategy for diffusing stress or frustration. Quiet, singular creative activities (in the traditional approach), like art or music, provide a constructive, positively-framed tactic for de-escalating tension or negative emotions. Art can offer a therapeutic way of expressing difficult emotions, private wounds, fears, losses, dreams & hopes, or nightmares & specters.

One of my favorite literary places in watercolors.

Perhaps my living in a coastal artist’s colony as a child created a lasting effect on my imagination? Maybe my love of the ocean, of water as a creative force, contributed to my love of watercolor painting & artworks?

Whatever the case, my hope is to continue to learn, express, refine skill, in the name of creative & artistic growth. I need to pursue constructive ways of working through my most challenging inner feelings. That’s a profound education I’m still pursuing.

A beautiful example of mixing watercolor pigments.