The Colorful Soul
A Watercolor Journal Practice for the Senses and the Sacred
A 7-Month Live Journal Practice with Karen Elaine & Wendy
A place to return. A place to soften.
A place to keep showing up.
Now, watch this video to find out what inspired us to do this!
Inside Willa Workshops, there’s a quiet sub-community that has formed over time: The watercolor painters. The ones who return to their journals not for the challenge—but for the feeling.
The feeling of brush to paper; Of color moving; Of something inside you settling as you paint.
It’s no secret that I’m one of you.
Watercolor is where I go when I want to relax the most.
It’s where I return when my nervous system needs something steady, gentle, and consistently healing.
The Colorful Soul was created for that space.
This experience brings everything together
This offering is designed for those who already feel at home with watercolor and hand lettering.
This is NOT a beginner’s tutorial course. For beginner’s courses in these subjects, please click here for watercolor classes, or here for hand lettering classes.
If you’ve taken:
Watercolor for Relaxation
Watercolor for Joy
Love Your Imperfect Letters
or similar classes inside Willa Workshops
You already have everything you need.
This isn’t about learning more. It’s about using what you know in a way that feels natural, intuitive, and sustaining. Where color, lettering, and mark-making begin to live together—without overthinking.
Join us!
EARLY BIRD ONE-TIME PAYMENT*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular price of this course is $197 USD + tax
EARLY BIRD TWO-PART PAYMENT PLAN*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular payment plan of this course is 3 x $68 USD + tax
What is The Colorful Soul?
This is a live, monthly paint-along experience for watercolor journalers and hand letterers.
Not a traditional class.
Not a place to learn something new.
A place to return.
For seven months, we’ll gather on Zoom, open our journals, and paint—together.
Page by page.
Layer by layer.
Month by month.
Like sitting at a table with friends who speak the same creative language.
What are we making?
Karen calls her journal The Book of Prayers.
For her, it’s a place to hold what matters—hopes, reflections, questions, and quiet truths.
That name might resonate with you. Or it might not. You get to decide what your book is.
You might call it…
Or you might not name it at all.
What matters is that it becomes a place to keep what feels important to you.
Your book might hold words you don’t want to forget; thoughts you’re still working through; things you’re hoping for; things you’re healing from; moments of clarity; small, meaningful truths.
There’s no right way to do this. Only your way.
What we’ll be doing together
Each month, we’ll gather live on Zoom. Karen and I will sit down with our journals and paint—side by side—just as we would if we were sharing a table.
We’ll talk as we work & you’ll see…
how we build a page from nothing
how we choose color and composition in real time
how lettering finds its way in naturally
how we keep going, even when we’re not sure what comes next
And you can:
paint along with us
ask questions as they come up
or simply watch and create later
There’s no pressure to keep up.
This isn’t about performance. It’s about presence.
When will we be meeting on Zoom?
We will be meeting live on Zoom on the first Tuesday of the month from June until December 2026. Each session will begin at 1:00 pm EDT/EST and will be approximately 2 hours long.
Click here to figure out when these session meetings are in your time zone
June 2, 2026
July 7, 2026
August 4, 2026
September 1, 2026
October 6, 2026
November 3, 2026
December 1, 2026
No worries if you cannot make it live!
A recording of each session will be available within 24 hours in our Invitation to Play classroom within Willa Workshops on Teachable. You get lifetime access to these recordings.
You can log into all of your Willa Workshops classes at willawanders.com.
Join us!
EARLY BIRD ONE-TIME PAYMENT*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular price of this course is $197 USD + tax
EARLY BIRD TWO-PART PAYMENT PLAN*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular payment plan of this course is 3 x $68 USD + tax
The Colorful Soul FAQs
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7 live Zoom sessions
First Tuesday of each month
1:00 PM Eastern
Hosted live on Zoom
Can’t make it live every time?
All sessions will be recorded and added to your private classroom on Teachable with lifetime access, so you can return whenever you need.
You can:
paint alongside us in real time
watch and create between sessions
or move through everything at your own pace
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This isn’t about pushing yourself.
It’s about giving yourself something reliable.
A rhythm.
A touchpoint.
A space your nervous system begins to recognize.A place where:
you don’t have to figure everything out
you don’t have to make something “good”
you can simply begin… and see what unfolds
It’s a community where everyone is committed to watercolor painting and hand lettering as a self-care practice.
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By the end of our time together, you’ll have:
A deeply personal journal (whatever you choose to call it)
Pages filled with color, words, and meaning
A creative practice you can return to again and again
A deeper trust in your own voice
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If you feel comfortable doing basic hand lettering in an art journal, you’re gonna be just fine. You don’t need to worry about a thing.
If hand lettering makes you really nervous, consider enrolling in Love Your imperfect Letters! Click here to learn more and enroll. I have taken thousands of people from fear to confidence over the last three years.
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If you’ve taken Watercolor classes somewhere else, that’s great! You will be very comfortable here.
If you’re looking to up your watercolor game, click here for all the watercolor classes offered from Willa Workshops.
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Karen Elaine and Wendy will providing a list of their EXACT favorite supplies inside of the classroom. For now, here is a list of what you need to get the most out of this experience:
Watercolor Paints in your favorite brands and colors
Pens
A watercolor journal—can be handmade or commercially made
Pencil and eraser
Watercolor brushes
A Cup of Water
Watercolor Palettes to mix paint on
an old rag
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Like all Willa Workshops offerings, recordings of the live Zoom meetings will be uploaded to the Teachable classroom within 24 hours. You will have lifetime access to the recordings, so you can watch or return to them as you please!
Meet your Guides!
Karen Elaine
Karen Elaine is a Fodder School instructor, mixed-media artist, author, teacher, and two-time cancer survivor. Her passions are sharing art, spreading hope, and inspiring others to be creative.
Karen has a lifelong passion for Watercolor, and has been teaching it for over 30 years. She has worked in the art supply industry for even longer, working in product development and education for Yasutomo, and becoming an ambassador for many other brands.
Karen lives and creates with her husband and cat in Cottonwood, Arizona.
Wendy Solganik
Wendy Solganik, aka @willa.wanders on Instagram, is a life-long artist and crafter, currently working in watercolor, hand lettering, mixed media collage, art journaling and handmade book arts. From production wheel pottery to scrapbooking to knitting and so many more passions, Wendy always dives deep to master a craft.
Wendy balances making art with energetically running her online art course platform, Willa Workshops. Over the past 6 years, she and other artists from around the globe have launched over 40 new online mixed media art, handmade book, collage art and watercolor painting courses. This includes the epic year long mixed media collage art experience called Fodder School, which is the creation that Wendy is most proud of.
A quiet invitation
If you’ve been craving a softer way to create…
If you’ve been wanting to return to your journal more consistently…
If you’re part of this watercolor rhythm and want a place to land each month…
This is for you.
Join us!
We would love to have you at the table with us.
EARLY BIRD ONE-TIME PAYMENT*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular price of this course is $197 USD + tax
EARLY BIRD TWO-PART PAYMENT PLAN*
*Early bird pricing available through 06/01/2026 @ 11:59pm EDT. Regular payment plan of this course is 3 x $68 USD + tax