Willow Heath is a watercolor artist and art instructor. A second-generation artist, Heath was born in the remote off-the-grid wilderness of the Alaskan frontier and moved to Seattle in the 90s to pursue a career in art and art education. You can find her instructing watercolor courses at Gage Academy of Art, Coyote Central, Pratt Fine Art, and other Seattle schools, where she has taught for 20 years. Lovingly nicknamed the Watercolor Witch of Seattle, Heath infuses her classroom and artwork with magic, passion for craft, art history, community, and her whimsical sense of nonconformity.
Seattle Refined: How long have you been creating art? What materials do you work with?
Heath: I’ve been creating art nearly my entire life; my mother is an artist. I was raised in a remote log cabin along the Yukon River in the Alaskan wilderness, away from roads and towns. This meant very long winters in a cabin that allowed me to explore and nurture my creativity. I remember being three years old and my mother burning willow tree branches in tins to create charcoal sticks for me to draw with on birch bark. I was mystified by it, and it stayed with me.
Water-media. I love any medium I can mix with water or travel with easily. I mostly work with watercolor; however, for years, I painted with watered-down acrylics, ink, and water-soluble oils. I’m obsessed with how versatile, challenging, and magical the medium of watercolor is. Because watercolor is a transparent medium, it allows for the paper to be used as the highlights and light values in a painting.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
Can you tell us about your artistic process and the stages involved?
The process to me is as important as the outcome. I often see a painting in my mind and then take photos, seek out images, and then I collage (photos, glue, and scissors) to create a blueprint for my art. This involves many cups of tea and a good playlist. Next, I observe the reference materials and create an internal list of the layers of my painting. Watercolor is really sensitive, and you have to work deliberately, layer by layer, so as not to smother your paper or lose your highlights, which are often the paper itself. Before painting, I swatch out many color themes until finally making a sort of painting mood board. I color mix from a minimal palette so that I can mix custom colors, a practice I carry with me from living off the Yukon River in Alaska. Each color I select for a piece often possesses both a personal symbolism and a material quality for the piece. And then I paint, allowing the painting to also take me on little detours and allowing myself to experiment and take risks along the way. In my opinion, experimentation (or play) in art is so important to discovery and often leads to the most beautiful result, or at least the most learning experience.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
Tell us about where your inspiration for your art comes from.
Sometimes I dream a painting, sometimes I brainstorm a painting with a narrative waiting to get out, and sometimes I observe the light on a subject and wonder what it would look like through my artist’s lens and translated onto my paper. It is so exciting to me to create the blueprint of art, to break apart an image and put it back together with a clear path, colors, composition, and techniques. Teaching art is a step further because I then have to clearly narrate the whole process to my students while painting.
If I didn’t teach painting, I might just be that quirky artist talking to myself while I paint.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
Is there a specific theme to your art or something you gravitate toward the most (like nature, portraits, food, or activism)?
I paint many portraits, blackbirds, mountains, crystals, skulls, and anything full of light that catches my eye or grabs my heart and gives me a good painting challenge. My color themes change and evolve, although Payne’s Grey and Permanent Rose are constant companions on my palette.
Teaching painting over the last 20+ years has really allowed me to explore other themes and come to the realization that I don’t have to “niche down,” that it is okay to paint all the things that inspire me, not just the one thing you can monetize on.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
Do you have one piece of art that is extremely special to you?
Just one?!
My favorite this last year is a vignette painting of two ravens on a double-pointed crystal. All of the ravens sold in my last solo exhibit, and I had the joy of painting numerous commissioned ravens after the show. This particular piece was an anniversary commission, and I poured so much love into it and had a great time piecing together references. The two ravens are actually the same raven from the same photoshoot, painted to look like a pair both facing the same direction. I knew immediately I wanted to paint the ravens on a crystal that naturally hinted at a heart shape and had rose undertones. I could not find this exact crystal to paint from, so I painted it using different crystals from my collection as inspiration. It is so rewarding when the end result is what was imagined and even more.
I do adore painting a good shiny glowy subject, so my second favorite is Self Reflection in Teacup, the gold teacup I painted that shows my upside-down reflection in the cup itself. Painting the illusion of gold or metallic in watercolor without using gold paint is such a joy to me.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
What experiences in your life have affected your art the most?
Growing up surrounded by an incredible artist community and the beauty of nature profoundly influenced my journey in the arts. My early years were spent off-the-grid in the remote Alaskan wilderness (no running water, no electricity, no roads). The survivalist lifestyle was not easy; however, it was there that I learned not only survival skills but how to make my own art supplies, fostering both my imagination and deep resilience. As a child, I saw nature as the ultimate artist and was inspired by how the aurora borealis painted the sky bright pink and green, and how the snow transformed our dark landscape each winter into all the shades of blue. My adolescent years were spent wayfaring, often in a big blue school bus (aka an art studio on wheels), traveling across the lower 48 to art events and creative communities with my artist mother. This lifestyle provided a canvas for curiosity and wonder, and reinforced my love of the arts, while giving me an unconventional education.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
If we want to see more of your work, where can we find it (in person and on the internet)?
Instagram @willowheath and on my website.
You can see my watercolor food illustrations in the two plant-based cookbooks by Caroline Wright, Soup Club, and Seconds. Seconds recently won gold for the 2025 Independent Publishers Book Awards in the cookbook category.
(Image: Courtesy of Willow Heath)
What is next for you? Anything you’re working on right now that you’re really excited about?
I am excited to continue to work on my larger portrait series about the artistic process. It is a series of imaginative realism portraits that are rich in symbolism. Simultaneously, I am working on more ravens perched on crystals; these go hand in hand with all the birds in the portrait series.
Lastly, how do you take your coffee? (We ask everyone!)
An oat milk latte from Cafe Vita, to stay and sip, not to-go. I like to sit and enjoy 15 minutes of calm each morning before going to the classroom or art studio.
About ‘Artist of the Week’: This city is packed with artists we love to feature weekly on Seattle Refined! If you have a local artist in mind that you would like to see featured, let us know at hello@seattlerefined.com. And if you’re wondering just what constitutes art, that’s the beauty of it; it’s up to you! See all of our past Artists of the Week in our dedicated section.