MOST ARTISTS AGREE THAT WATERCOLOR IS THE MOST DIFFICULT medium to master. According to artist Dennis Fulbright, mistakes are nearly impossible to overcome. “If you make a mistake in watercolor, you cannot cover it up—you can paint over it a thousand times, and you’ll still see it,” he says.

He should know. He’s been perfecting his craft since he was a young boy. “I would sit in class and draw,” Fulbright recalls with a laugh. “I got in trouble for that, but I was always drawing something—cars, airplanes, trees, everything. My parents supported me with supplies, materials and encouragement.”

Fulbright, like his paintings, exhibits a refined, easygoing nature—his soft Southern drawl as rhythmic as his brushstrokes. Growing up in Toccoa, Georgia, part of the Appalachian region and about 90 miles northeast of Atlanta, his first watercolor lesson by an elementary art teacher, Mrs. Rush Herndon, set his life path on a bold trajectory.

Herndon recognized Fulbright’s talent as a promising artist and encouraged him to hone his skills. “She had a major influence on me,” he explains. “The first painting I ever did was a watercolor, and that started my interest in painting only watercolors. I still have those early paintings, and most of them are transparent watercolors.”

The white of a transparent watercolor is that of the paper, giving the work a luminosity where colors seem to glow. Using white pigments doesn’t allow light to pass through, giving a painting a chalkier appearance. Transparent watercolors are far more difficult to master, and it’s the only technique Fulbright uses for his work now.

Fulbright credits Tony Couch, an internationally renowned watercolor artist, as his most influential mentor. He attended many of Couch’s workshops, where the principles of the medium became his foundation for every watercolor. Fulbright’s subjects—landscapes, iconic structures, bucolic scenes, animals and lakeside environments—do indeed seem to glow, often taking only hours to achieve. Most of his paintings appear detailed, and patrons will often ask him how much time it takes to complete them.

“Sixty-eight years and five hours,” Fulbright tells them, with a chuckle. “Couch always told his students that watercolor was like golf—the fewer the strokes, the better the outcome.”

Fulbright’s body of work dates back decades, and he has kept many of his sketches and paintings. As graduation presents to his three children, who graduated from the College of Charleston, he gifted them their favorite watercolors from his collection, as well as entire sketchbooks of his drawings. His wife, Cathy Fulbright, asked that he do a sketch every day for 365 days for her birthday one year. She says it is one of her most treasured keepsakes—not to mention an original designed specifically for her. According to her, Fulbright sketches a minimum of four to five hours a day. This practice and his ability to draw, draw in proper perspective and place shapes into a composition make him a true artist, she adds.

Many watercolor masters apparently made mistakes while perfecting the transparent technique. The Fulbrights bought a watercolor by Ted Kautzky, a world-renowned watercolor artist and architect in the 20th century, who is one of the couple’s favorite artists. They noticed a similar painting on the back while reframing it, which was about 60% complete and seemed to be a mistake. As a corrected solution, Kautzky completed his masterpiece on the other side.

Remarkably, Fulbright’s career was analogous to Kautzky’s. Entering college, Fulbright first studied commercial art for three years before he switched his major to landscape architecture. There, he met Glenn Forrest Chesnut, a professor of art and literature. “He had such a huge impact on me,” Fulbright reveals. “His philosophy and logic, as they relate to art and literature, have had a significant influence on my passion for art. Mr. Chesnut, being a great artist himself, painted many illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post. A true inspiration.”

Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture and environmental design, Fulbright eventually met his wife when they both worked as landscape architects, first at a large architectural and engineering firm before establishing their own firm. They worked on some of the largest and most notable developments all over the country—from South Carolina, Florida and Texas to New York, Delaware and the Pacific Northwest. Master plan developments, land use studies and environmental impact assessments were part of their career repertoire—each fueling their successes in biophilic design. With their own firm in Greenville, South Carolina, the couple worked with a developer in Charleston, creating distinguished developments in the Lowcountry.

When they retired, they traveled extensively, often stopping if they spotted a structure or setting to paint. As Fulbright became a full-time watercolor artist, he entered his work in various venues, garnering a prestigious reputation and winning accolades and awards.

Fulbright won first place at the 18th Annual Forgotten Coast En Plein Air Paint Out, where he braved torrential rains to create the winning watercolor. At Charlotte’s 58th Annual Festival in the Park, he was a juried artist, receiving a Merit Award for his work, and for the past five years, his watercolors have been displayed at Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibition at Marion Square. Other awards include Second Place and Exhibitors Choice at the Currahee Artist Guild Fall Juried Show.

From his early days creating renderings of industrial buildings and developments to company Christmas cards to becoming a full-time watercolor artist, Fulbright credits his wife for much of it, stating, “I always say it takes two artists to paint a watercolor: one to paint it and one to say it’s finished.”

Far from finished, the couple have made their homes in Charleston and Greenville. Renovating a home in Charleston and doing much of the work themselves, they spend summers in Greenville—their home nestled on 17 acres. Previously owned by a husband and wife physician team who conducted studies for The Rockefeller Foundation, it sits along the Saluda River.

Fulbright has a fondness for his Georgia roots—his current collection contains depictions of Lake Rabun, Seed Lake and Lake Burton. He admits he always paints to music and is a self-proclaimed “Deadhead.”

“‘Scarlet Begonias’ has inspired a few paintings. Where ‘the sky was yellow, and the sun was blue,’” he says, quoting a few lyrics. The frisson Fulbright feels when he cranks up the Grateful Dead has translated to imaginative washes of vibrant color on paper. Perhaps a yellow sky and a blue sun will make their way onto the paper, eventually.

There is a composed cadence and tranquility to Fulbright’s work—an elegant ebb and flow. Soft and luminous or vivid and hard-edged—the colors seem to leap and recede simultaneously off the paper. The delicate precision and patience required to master them—their fantastical fluctuations of color, light and shadow—delight, inspire and bring wonder. When we pause to take it all in. *

Brigitte Surette is a freelance writer, editor and copywriter. To learn more, visit brigittesurette.com.