Until I was about ten years old, nearly every birthday and Christmas brought at least one coloring book, paper dolls to cut out or other “activity” book. One rather short-lived version consisted of line drawings filled with little black dots that, when subjected to a wet paint brush, magically turned into watercolors. This involved no useful skills such as using scissors, staying inside the lines or even choosing appropriate colors. The colors were preordained and aside from the small satisfaction of discovering what colors the dots contained, there was no sense of accomplishment.

By third grade, our list of school supplies included a tin of watercolors consisting of primary and secondary colors plus brown and black and a small paint brush that was marginally superior to the one that came with the dot book. Unable to wait for whatever they would be used for in school, I tried out the paints in one of my coloring books and was fascinated that, with those eight tiny pans of pigment and a little experimentation, I had every known color at my disposal. I demonstrated some of this “magic” for my dad, showing him that pink was simply watered-down red, and by mixing blue and green, or red and purple, I could create my two favorite colors, blue-green and red-violet. It was some time before I began thinking of drawing my own pictures to paint – or to imagine painting anything without definite outlines to fill with color. Wet colors bleeding into other wet colors were accidents in my mind and it took me some time to appreciate the beauty and possibilities of the effect.

Then, one day, one of our neighbors summoned me to her front porch and showed me a box of note papers and envelopes with drawings in gray lines. They showed wild flowers and birds intertwined with leafy vines. “These were a gift from my sister in Colorado,” she explained. “She thought I’d enjoy painting them, but I’m not artistic like she is and I know I’d do a bad job of it. Your mother said you’re good at drawing. Do you think you could color them for me?”

“The drawings are so little,” I told her, “I don’t think colors (which I had interpreted as meaning crayons) will work. Maybe you could do them. With colored pencils maybe.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t have anything like that. I was hoping you do. I’ll pay you if you’ll do it.” I told her I’d try if she was sure she wanted me to but she didn’t have to pay me. We left it at that and I went home with the box of stationery, wondering if we had any colored pencils in addition to the red and blue “checking pencil” my big sister had in her high-school supplies. She had brown, yellow and pink pencils left over from map work but they weren’t enough. Mother said why didn’t I try my watercolors, so with more than a little trepidation, I slowly and very carefully tried painting one of the tiny flowers on one of the pages. The paper was different from the coloring book paper I had been painting on. I discovered that, meant for writing on with a pen, it was less absorbent and required tiny, intense drops of color to achieve the effect I expected. Fortunately, there were only a dozen sheets of note papers with envelopes, and two days later I proudly carried the box of finished stationery across the street and presented them to our neighbor.

“Now, what do I owe you for such fine work?” she asked. When I tried to tell her I’d been glad to do it and didn’t need to be paid, she said that most people valued only the things that they had to pay for and didn’t appreciate free things like sunsets, beautiful snowy days and butterflies, and insisted that I should put a value on my talent or no one would appreciate it. At that time, I didn’t understand what she meant but suggested a dollar, which seemed like a fortune to an eight-year-old in 1942. She said that ten cents for each page ($1.20) and five for each envelope (because they had fewer things to paint) all added up to $1.80, and an extra twenty cents for delivery, seemed a fair price to her. Since that day, I’ve nearly always charged at least something for my work, but it seems to be too much when you consider what I learn in the doing and the pleasure I get from every new accomplishment.