The Wild Return of Spring: Why This Season Rekindles My Watercolor Brush

There’s a certain kind of magic that stirs in the spring—soft and quiet at first, like the sound of thawing earth or the flicker of wings brushing against new blooms. After months of stillness, it’s as if the entire natural world exhales. I feel that shift deep in my bones, and with it comes the gentle, insistent pull to return to watercolor.

Spring revives something inside me. It’s not just the light—though longer days do make the colors in my palette seem to glow more brightly. It’s the spirit of spring: the return of birdsong, the sudden pop of green on bare branches, the way animals begin to move again in the fields and woods. Everything seems to whisper, “Create.”

For me, watercolor has always been the perfect medium to express this wild aliveness. Its translucency feels like light. Its unpredictability mirrors nature’s own rhythms—free-flowing, delicate, but with a quiet power. As I approach a new watercolor, I don't want to just capture how an animal looks, but I want to express how it feels to witness it emerge again into the world after a long winter. A fox pausing mid-step in soft morning fog. A heron lifting into an April sky. A deer, half-shadow, half-sunlight.

Each brushstroke becomes an invitation to reconnect—with nature, with spirit, and with the part of myself that’s always been watching, waiting, ready to return.

So as the world outside begins to bloom, I find myself reaching for my watercolor paints.