How I Stumbled Back Into Watercolor

For years, I’d get emails from my local library about watercolor classes.

I’d always think, that sounds so fun. And then I’d just go back to work.

Then, in 2026, I suddenly (and very unexpectedly) found myself unemployed. For the first time since I was fifteen years old, I had nowhere I absolutely had to be on a Tuesday afternoon.

I’d been working since I was fifteen. At different points I had two jobs. Once I even had four. Somewhere along the way, between work, workouts, family, and trying to be a functional adult, I quietly stopped doing some of the things I loved.

Painting was one of them.

My father was an incredible artist, and as a kid, I always hoped I’d inherit his extraordinary ability. Umm, I didn’t. 🤣  But at some point, I stopped caring whether I was any good at painting. I just loved doing it, results be damned. And I’ve always had an eye for art and surrounded myself with it. Come to my house and you’ll find walls absolutely covered in artwork. At this point, there’s barely any empty space anywhere and sometimes I worry the weight of all those paintings might bring a wall crashing down.

And I’m a library girl. I have library cards from multiple cities because apparently one library is incapable of supplying me with enough books. I’d always notice those event emails and think how fun they sounded, but they were almost always in the middle of the day.

So one afternoon, while I was still wandering around trying to figure out what on earth came next, another watercolor class from the library popped into my inbox.

All abilities welcome. No pressure. Totally free (which is especially nice when you’ve unexpectedly lost your income 😅).

And for whatever reason…

I went!

I think it had been close to twenty years since I’d last picked up a paintbrush…which is a ridiculous sentence to write.

Twenty.

Years.

The paintings looked exactly like you’d expect from someone who hadn’t touched a brush in two decades.

I loved every second of it, though. It felt like a sigh of relief.

Why had I ever stopped doing this?

I loved it so much that I immediately went shopping for some basic supplies so I could keep painting at home. I bought a simple watercolor palette, an assortment of brushes, some beautiful cold-pressed cotton paper…and a tablecloth and drop cloth, because I know myself well enough to know that disaster will inevitably strike. 😅

And I started painting every day.

No plan.

No agenda.

Just letting my hands do whatever they felt like doing.

Some days it was leaves. Some days it was flowers. Sometimes it was nothing more than circles because I liked watching the colors bleed into each other.

There wasn’t a goal. I wasn’t trying to get good. I was just enjoying making something again.

And it has been so much fun.

Somewhere in the middle of all that painting, I realized something that honestly surprised me. I’d remembered what a real break actually feels like. 

Not endlessly scrolling.

Not binge-watching another show.

Not staring at my phone for forty-five minutes and then wondering where the time went.

I wanted to make something.

When I eventually go back to work (because sadly, I will have to 😒), I don’t want to forget that again. I don’t want another busy season of life to quietly crowd out the things that make me feel like myself.

Let me paint instead of doom-scrolling.

Let me paint instead of watching another episode I wasn’t even excited about.

Let me make something.

And after a while, I started noticing something funny. I’d catch myself looking at the envelopes for the Mail Club, thinking…I could paint those.

One idea became painted envelopes.

Then cards and closure stickers.

Then bookmarks.

Before I knew it, watercolor wasn’t just something I’d rediscovered. It had quietly woven itself into Venvy Lab.

I still don’t know exactly what comes next for me. Life has a funny way of refusing to share those details ahead of time.

But I do know this.

The next time life gets busy, and of course, it definitely will…I don’t want another twenty years to pass before I pick up a paintbrush again.