There was a time when I didn’t have words for what I was feeling. I don’t mean in the dramatic sense — not some epic silence or life-altering grief. It was quieter than that. Just a kind of disconnection. A sense that whatever was happening inside me didn’t translate cleanly into language. I could speak, of course. I could talk about logistics, plans, ideas — but not the quiet ache beneath them. Not the tender, uncertain parts that had gone wordless.
That’s when I picked up watercolor again.
It wasn’t an intentional return. It was more of a reaching-an instinct to move something through me. I found an old brush, a half-dried palette, and a piece of paper I didn’t care about ruining. I didn’t have a plan, just the need to move something through me. I remember the feeling when water hit pigment — that slow bloom of color, that delicate, uncontrollable spread, mirroring the way I began to listen to myself. It felt like watching my own thoughts unfurl in a language I hadn’t spoken in years.
That was the beginning of listening.
Watercolors taught me how to listen differently. Not through thought, but through attention. Through stillness. With my breath. With the parts of myself that noticed things I didn’t know I was noticing — the way a certain blue made me feel safer, or how an accidental curve of a line felt more honest than anything I could say.
Unlike other mediums, watercolor doesn’t let you hold control too tightly. You can guide it, but you can’t dominate it. The water has its own logic. It moves with its own quiet intelligence, carrying pigment across the page, erasing hard edges, merging what once seemed separate. Sometimes it ruins what you thought was perfect. Sometimes it transforms what you thought was lost.
It’s a medium that teaches humility and requires trust. Not just in the process, but in yourself.
And that’s what kept me coming back. Not because I was trying to perfect anything, but because I needed to stay close to that part of me that could feel without having to explain. Painting became the place where I stopped performing and started listening — not just to the image in front of me, but to what was surfacing underneath.
Somewhere along the way, birds began appearing. They were quiet at first — just outlines, gestures. But then they took on shape, color, emotion. I realized I wasn’t painting them to represent anything literal. I was painting them because they were messengers. Symbols. Tiny reflections of the things I was trying to hear more clearly: stillness, instinct, grief, courage, release.
Watercolor gave me a way to hear myself again, engaging in a conversation of colors and forms that didn’t demand answers, only presence. And maybe that’s what art is at its core — a kind of deep listening, a noticing, a way of staying close to what matters when words fall short.
If you’ve felt far from yourself lately, or if you’ve been trying too hard to explain things that won’t settle into language, I hope you’ll find a quiet place to listen. Maybe it’s in art. Maybe it’s in birdsong. Maybe it’s just in your breath. But it’s there.
And if it helps to have something visual beside you, something soft and true and made from that same kind of listening, you can explore my watercolor bird collection here.
Each piece was painted slowly. Not to impress, but to understand.
Not to speak, but to listen.

Want to read more like this? Subscribe to receive new blog posts and paintings directly in your inbox — a soft reminder to pause and return to stillness.

If you’re drawn to what watercolor can teach us about stillness, you might also enjoy Flight and the Fear of Change.

Thanks for reading!

Laura Wilkins