When I was growing up, my mother would roast red peppers, slice them, pour olive oil over them and season with salt, pepper and garlic. Deeeelicious with fresh Italian bread.

They were a favorite of mine – until the day I found a fresh batch, grabbed a forkful, and discovered they were HOT red cherry peppers instead of the sweet red peppers I expected. Yikes!

Have you ever had a surprise like that — when you expected one thing and experienced something completely different? It happens often in my kitchen but even more so in my studio when I am working with watercolor.

Inspired by my trip to Sante Fe, this watercolor began as an exercise in color saturation. I was pleased with how the pepper turned out, but it did not feel quite ready for greeting card status. I wrestled with adding a table setting or a plate with more peppers but I preferred the lone red pepper. It had presence. It simply needed something to express its vitality.

A warm, fiery background seemed like the right choice — something bold enough to add energy while still keeping the pepper as the star of the show. This was a fun creation using wet-on-wet watercolor technique: saturating the paper with water, then dropping brush loads of yellow, orange, red and letting it bloom. Then the unexpected happened and continued all through the drying phase.

When I look at these two images, side by side, I see intensity and transformation. Consider the red chili starts out green. In the process of ripening (“drying” or “aging”), the pepper becomes something hotter, brighter, and full of energy. Maybe that’s what gives it such vitality — or maybe it is simply the promise that one small pepper can transform a pot of chili to win the cook-off.

Either way, it offers a reminder worth keeping close: The process of ripening can deliver unexpected surprises and spice things up.