 The San Francisco critic Alfred Frankenstein credited Colburn with a sense of drama and “as fine an eye for the subtleties of watercolor as this country has produced since Marin’s heyday.”

Colburn grew up in Glendale and Long Beach and studied geology at the University of Southern California.After graduating in 1932 he spent a year in Europe traveling and studying art.Upon his return to Los Angeles, he studied with Don Graham at Chouinard Art Institute.