THINKING IN WATERCOLOR with Paris-based artist-turned-author Jessie Kanelos Weiner
The art of seeing, painting experiments, and Jessie's upcoming book that teaches us how to watercolor.
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All words are my own unless otherwise stated. More from me + Absolument exists in these places:
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Our guest today is Jessie Kanelos Weiner, who may be found here: Website | Substack | Instagram.
Merci, thank you tons and tons for reading!
What I like about practicing an art form is the soul-stirring act of being both present in your eyes and actively swirling in your imagination. You’re seeing inside of yourself and outside of yourself simultaneously. I began experimenting with oil painting three years ago. While teaching myself the ropes, I was stumbling and definitely wasting precious paint while learning how to mix the pigments properly. It was so different from my experience of acrylic or watercolor! I made two abstracted paintings and then took a hiatus because…I moved to France. Becoming quasi-French was worth the temporary pause.
A few weeks ago, I was bursting with motivation to get back to my oil painting exploration, practically running to a store to purchase new pigments. (One huge thing I regret from my international move was giving away all of my oil painting supplies!!!!) This third oil painting is a cityscape and also my first attempt at painting “realistically.” I feared that I was jumping into it too quickly and wasn’t seasoned enough. In the first few moments of placing my elongated, delicate brush on the canvas, I felt the rush of diving back into my creativity.
My eyes were hyper-focused on the canvas, but I was also looking inward, imagining how the scene felt while I was there in person. I’m on a street in Copenhagen. In fact, I’m in the middle of the road. Luckily, there are no cars! The sky is so sensitively light grey that it feels like someone pricked a small bit of watercolor paint into the void above me, letting it evenly wash itself out. The red neon of the Danish KAFE sign adds another dimension, as does the undeniable quaintness of it all.
Being an artist allows you the luck to be in two places at once.
Wassily Kandinsky was onto something too
After writing about my own experience above, I had an intuitive ping: “What did famous artists think about ‘seeing’ while creating their art?” I turned to search my nearby bookshelf for Kandinsky’s book, Point and Line to Plane, and found the exact sentiments described! He is tons more eloquent and poetic about it, but our two thoughts point to the theme of inwardness and outwardness while creating something.
“Every phenomenon can be experienced in two ways. These two ways are not arbitrary, but are bound up with the phenomenon—developing out of its nature and characteristics:
Externally—or—inwardly.
The street can be observed through the windowpane, which diminishes its sounds so that its movements become phantom-like. The street itself, as seen through the transparent (yet hard and firm) pane seem set apart, existing and pulsating as if ‘beyond.’
As soon as we open the door, step out of the seclusion and plunge into the outside reality, we become an active part of this reality and experience its pulsation with all our senses. The constantly changing grades of tonality and tempo of the sounds wind themselves about us, rise spirally and, suddemly, collapse. Likewise, the movements envelop us by a play of horizontal and vertical lines bending in different directions, and color-patches pile up and dissolve into high or low tonalities.
This work of Art mirrors itself upon the surface of our consciousness. However, its image extends beyond, to vanish from the surface without a trace when the sensation has subsided. A certain transparent, but definite glass-like partition, abolishing direct contact from within, seems to exist here as well. Here, too, exists the possibility of entering art’s message, to participate actively, and to experience its pulsating life with all one’s senses.”
-Wassily Kandinsky
Watercolor artist Jessie Kanelos Weiner, on her new book THINKING IN WATERCOLOR
Jessie was so enthusiastically and warmly kind enough to have a conversation with me about her upcoming book, Thinking in Watercolor: A Daily Practice to Unlock Your Creativity & Discover Your Inner Artist. It feels akin to The Artist’s Way, but for those curious about watercolor.
The book makes its debut in a few days, on March 4th. Order it now!
Jessie’s Links: Website | Substack | Instagram
Kelsey: Let’s begin with the basics! How did you discover your immense attraction to painting, particularly watercolor? How did this devotion—and I’m sure, intense practice—to the medium lead you to writing about it?
Jessie: My mom was an art teacher when I was a kid and had a giant trunk of supplies she would open from time to time (after extensive nagging on my part). My mom always mentioned how difficult watercolor was and that put the idea in my head to try it out for myself. When I moved to Paris, I bought my first set of Winsor Newton watercolors and started playing around with them in my travel sketchbook. I loved how the colors were vibrant and I had to force myself to be completely present when painting. I started drawing my new life in Paris and posting my drawings online. They took off and I started getting commissioned to illustrate for clients like Vogue and The New Yorker.
Watercolor has a bad reputation. It's finicky. It's unforgivable. Most people give up on it before really understanding it. But I find that I can convince anyone to like it with a few techniques and decent materials. This was the catalyst for writing this book. It's not just about learning the principles of watercolor painting, but also how to find your own artistic voice, starting where you are.
Kelsey: Can you describe THINKING IN WATERCOLOR in three words and three colors?
Jessie: Inspiring, fun and enlightening.
Kelsey: Those three words ring completely true. Is there a particular exercise in the book that you imagine most people would relate to, whether they self-identify as an “artist” or not?
Jessie: The book is organized progressively from simple observational drawing exercises to more personal, conceptual ones. Since watercolor is an exercise in transparency, one of the most difficult things to master is saving the white of the paper when needed. There's a 3-tone watercolor exercise where you draw out the white, middle and darkest tones before painting them layer by layer. It always lands with an "a-ha" moment in students.
Kelsey: We share a grand, identity-evolving life event in common: we both moved from big city America to France. How did your practice change after migrating to France? Has Paris remained as enchanting as it seems, especially through the eyes of an artist?
Jessie: I moved to Paris fresh off of college. This is where I found myself and figured out how to channel my creative energy. It's intimidating starting out here because there are so many structures in place that foreigners can find intimidating and almost impossible. But my greatest strength is that I am not from here. And I've had to embrace it. I don't know the rules so I continue taking big swings.
I actually live here so my life isn't as enchanted as one would think, but I'm grateful I live in a country where there is cultural literacy. As an artist, I can also visit most museums for free, which is a tremendous privilege.
Kelsey: There are a few spots in the book where you referenced your hypersensitivity and how colorful your inner world has always been. For my readers who are similar (me included!), how do your watercolor exercises help someone take advantage of this in-tuned way of being?
Jessie: When I'm painting, I am truly alive. It's a celebration of the present. Even if you don't like what your final watercolor is, it is a fragment of the process. So many of us are encouraged to stop drawing/painting because of a discouraging art teacher or because art is said to not be a fruitful endeavor. And if it feels good doing it, then that is enough.
“Even though I wasn’t always creating work, I was seeing in an intense way. Why was the golden hour in Paris so breathtaking? Why was the color of the Mediterranean so much more intoxicating than that of Lake Michigan at home? With my senses heightened, I was able to start seeing like an artist.” - JKW
Thinking in Watercolor comes out NEXT WEEK, on March 4th, and you can order it through Hachette here!
One last note:
- wrote in What I Learned from Elsa Schiaparelli:
“Looking at a watercolor feels like gazing into a dream—soft, fluid, and endlessly captivating. The way the colors mute, blend, and bleed creates a kind of magic. When juxtaposed against the crisp precision of a line drawing, a narrative unfolds, taking shape and meaning, though ambiguous enough to leave space for imagination. There's a sense of childlike wonder in its playfulness, a delight that feels nostalgic and fresh.”
Related Absolument Posts:
Le Corbusier's Keyboard of Colors, Eames Greige, and other hue symphonies.
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I’ve already rediscovered my watercolor set, thanks to Jessie!
Kelsey Rose
Website | Book Recs | Instagram
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Was so excited to read this when it showed up in my inbox! I am so drawn to anything about watercolor these days so of course I had to pre-order Jessie’s book. It was such a nice little surprise at the end to see my Substack mentioned. Thank you for including that last note!
I LOVE this installment! And I'm so glad you are painting again!