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Artist and psychotherapist Judy Rosenstein of Highland Park had to get past the conventional arbiters of aesthetics who seemed to rule her childhood to be able to follow her own artistic muse.

Her grade-school teachers, she said, always picked the same students every year to do classroom murals. But she was never picked because she followed her own artistic path even at a young age. "I can remember drawing trees, and they were very upset because I made them pink, orange, and purple," she said. "I wasn't considered to be staying within the bounds of drawing at the time."

Then in high school she recalled a painting she did for a humanities class in the art room. The art teacher, thinking she was being helpful, made marks all over the painting, indicating how it could be improved. "I was horrified," said Rosenstein, "and when I was done with the class, I put it under the bed, not to be taken out again."

Since those days, Rosenstein has traveled far, working over time in prints, acrylics, and watercolors. She will exhibit her newest watercolors from April 7 to 30 at the Highland Park Public Library on North Fifth Avenue. A reception highlighting these paintings, on display in the room to the rear of the library, will take place Sunday, April 18, 2-4 p.m.

Today, said Rosenstein, teachers encourage children to express themselves and let their own style come through -- something she had to find for herself as an adult. Early on, she used pen and ink and then acrylics. That worked until the oldest of her five daughters, Mira, initiated a ride to the emergency room by eating some Mars black acrylics. Mira was OK, but Rosenstein decided she needed to put away her artwork for a while.

As her girls got older, though, Rosenstein felt she needed to express herself through artwork, and she started to study at the Highland Park art academy. But there she faced criticism similar to what she had experienced as a child and after two years she moved on to her current teacher, Jill Canzano. "What's really nice about her is that she allows you to be you," said Rosenstein. "Even though she teaches, she allows your own stuff to come through, rather than being a teacher who wants you to do it her own way."

For Rosenstein, her artwork offers an alternative to the pain and suffering she sees regularly in her therapy practice. "I do very heavy psychotherapy with people," she said. "What I try and do with watercolors is create a world that is sort of a fantasy world that I can wish myself into." Most of her pictures, she explains, are happy and nice to look at, for example, a child under an umbrella or near a fence, a man in Harlem near a streetlight.

One picture in Rosenstein's new exhibit, however, is very serious. She painted it in honor of her husband's mother, whose 12 brothers and sisters and parents died in the concentration camps. "Joe's mother and father were on the last ship out," said Rosenstein. The picture in the show, which she calls "Defiance," shows striped pajamas with a gold star in the background surrounded by green, representing the forest, and Jewish people in all directions. The sense of the painting, she said, is that there is nowhere to run.

Rosenstein's roots reach back to the mid-19th century Midwest when her great-great-great-grandparents came to Fargo, N.D., from Bremen, Germany. They were Orthodox Jews and earned a living peddling on the route from Fargo to Minneapolis, selling dry goods from the back of a buckboard, drawn by a mule. Family lore also has it that her family built a mikvah in the center of North Dakota to be accessible to as many Jews as possible in the state.

Rosenstein herself grew up in Albert Lea, Minn., a town of 18,000 with about seven Jewish families, most of whom were related. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother an officer of the court who did mediation work and therapy for people who came into the court. Jewish families from all the different farming communities in the area would get together for Passover, Hanukkah, and other Jewish holidays, and for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur they would bring in a rabbi to lead services.

Rosenstein attended the University of Colorado and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in criminology. She earned a master's degree in psychology from Kean College and another in social work from Rutgers University, and she has been doing therapy for 41 years.

Painting gives Rosenstein a lot of pleasure. "It relaxes me," she said. "Things that I paint are very calming for me and hopefully will be the kind of calming paintings that people can really get into."

Her paintings are, in a sense, a reaction against a society that is so fast paced that everyone is stressed. "I try to paint most of my paintings that aren't jarring, aren't in any way going to give anxiety," she explained. "When people look at a painting, I want them to really feel like 'Ah,' and let out that stressful breath and be able to calm down a little bit."

For Rosenstein, painting is not only a means of self-expression but also a way to relax. "It is important to relax when you paint," said Rosenstein. "It is important to allow yourself to be spiritual, which we are not allowed to be in our culture. We have to run out and do everything, not just sit and be ourselves."

Rosenstein's experience as a psychotherapist has taught her that most people have a hard time being with themselves and being a friend to themselves. "I think that is very important," said Rosenstein. "It took me long time to learn to like myself as person, to enjoy myself as a person, whether I'm reading, watching TV, needlepointing, or painting."

What people are very good at in our society, suggested Rosenstein, is running around all the time to escape from themselves. For her, painting is a time to be with herself.

"I'm with people all day listening to everybody's problems," she said. "It is a nice way to mellow out for me. Whatever activities people do, they should get into that sort of mindset -- it's my time, and I enjoy being with me, whether soaking in a tub, reading, or walking, it's important for people to really like themselves as person."