A Sterling Edwards painting

During the Western Federation of Watercolor Society's show and conference, we had a visit from Sterling Edwards, a well known watercolorist and instructor. I was fortunate enough to get one of his paintings! It's the landscape with aspen trees.

Sterling is a very generous instructor, we had him do a workshop for the Utah Watercolor Society last year. What I liked about him was that he shared everything he knew about art, his techniques, his marketing strategies, etc. Sometimes you get instructors that will protect some of their techniques, but not Sterling! He was very sharing and is a lovely, kind southern gentlemen. Everyone who attended the workshop was just thrilled with him.

His style of painting is very loose and colorful. My own style is very controlled, but it was really wonderful to take this workshop and loosen up abit! Since I acquired Sterling's painting recently, I thought I ought to try painting a bit looser in watercolor. For me this is really quite difficult! So I have been practicing on 18" x 24" sheets of paper. I admit I am struggling to get the beautiful clear washes that Sterling does. It's going to take a lot of practice for me! My study pieces are going on ebay, like this poppy one. Tomorrow I will try, try again!