The watercolor medium lends itself to calm and gentle observation of the world around us. That's certainly the mood established by the Slayton House Gallery exhibit "Watercolor Magic," featuring work by Brenda Kidera and her students.

Flowers and fruit can be relied upon to quietly pose for their picture. The creative challenge for the watercolor artist is to be sensitive to natural forms and colors.

In Kidera's "Dazzling Dahlias," reddish pink flowers have been placed in a cut-glass bowl. The dahlias have such tightly packed small petals that a lot of time obviously went into depicting each petal.

A much sparer and more closely cropped approach is adopted by Mary Rosenbaum for two watercolors, "Tea Rose" and "Hibiscus," which keep the focus on the shape and coloration of single blooms.

That reductive quality is shared by Juanita Sweadner, whose still-life arrangement "Apple and Two Pears" places those three pieces of fruit on a white tabletop with a black background.

For a somewhat more unusual still-life gathering of fruit, have a look at Donna Box's "Still Life with Pomegranates." A bowl contains a bunch of bananas, two apples and a pear. Resting in front of that bowl is a vibrantly red pomegranate that is split to reveal the densely packed seeds within it.

Considerably expanding the depiction of nature, Ellen Miller's "Sunlit" presents a white birch forest in which the leafless trees are poles backed by melting tones of yellow and green. Watercolor is well-suited for that backing atmospheric wash.

And the view dramatically opens up in Chris Dodd's "What a View!" It depicts a man seated at the rim of a deep canyon. The pale pinks and greens deployed for that rocky canyon make for a meditative setting for this fellow gloriously alone in nature.

A less dramatic scene with people enjoying nature can be found in Jeannette Birger's "Juanita and Grace." Two women are seated on a wood bench in a peaceful spot in which hostas and other woodland plants speak to a carefully tended nature. Their bright clothing includes enough green to make them seem at home here.

Also posing for its picture is Kathleen Junker's "Great Egret." This imposing white bird proudly stands on a tree branch in a wild setting defined by palms and other tropical vegetation.

As for the built environment, one of the most striking examples is Donna Box's "Washington Square." This sharply cropped watercolor only shows the top half of that marble arch in lower Manhattan. A sunset mood is established by the purple zone covering much of the white marble surface, as well as by the orange- and yellow-defined sky. No buildings or other signs of the metropolis appear in this quiet slice of the Big Apple.

This exhibit mostly features representational work, but there are a few abstractions. Loreen Western's "Fantasy" has melting green, pink and purple arranged into swirling patterns. The watercolor medium itself is the real subject here.

"Watercolor Magic" runs through Dec. 19 at Slayton House Gallery, in Wilde Lake Village Green, in Columbia. Call 410-730-3987.

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