About

I create watercolor portraits and still life paintings that are highly realistic. My palette is bold and bright, and I delight in creating objects that are shiny, reflective, colorful, and difficult. Some of my contemporaries "own" certain subjects such as Ball jars, peonies, or musical instruments. In my quest to find original subject matter, I've ventured into antique jewelry, marbles, candy, and glass gems. Over the past few years, I’ve created a series of portraits of myself and my extended family. This series was especially comforting during 2020, when COVID-19 kept me from the people I loved. And like many other artists last year, when I ran out of available models, I discovered that sometimes I’m my own best subject.

My paintings can take anywhere from two weeks to two months to complete. My approach to painting is meticulous and time-consuming, and I think this helps my viewers understand how important my subjects are to me. If items as mundane as marbles on a piece of foil (or my two young nieces, whom I’ve painted repeatedly) are worthy of my extended, intense study, then maybe everything my audience encounters in their daily lives deserves a second look.

Bio

Kelly Eddington was born in west-central Illinois and received a B.A. in painting and drawing from Western Illinois University and an M.A. in art education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was an art teacher for seventeen years before deciding to pursue painting full-time in 2010. Film critic Roger Ebert became an early fan of Eddington’s paintings when he recognized one of his books in the background of Kelly’s portrait of a little girl named Mabel.

Kelly’s YouTube channel has 218,000 subscribers. Her videos inspired art paper giant Strathmore to produce two pads of watercolor paper with step-by-step instructional material and videos by Kelly in 2016. Learn to Paint Watercolor Flowers and Watercolor Basics are designed for people who are new to the medium. You can read about them here.

A relatively-recent Illinois transplant, Kelly lives in rural northeast Missouri with her husband Jeff and their cat Pooj. Their self-designed home near Mark Twain Lake is made of styrofoam and steel.

Kelly is a signature member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, American Women Artists, the Missouri Watercolor Society, the Illinois Watercolor Society, and the Watercolor Honor Society. She will be part of the team of watercolor artists representing the United States at the prestigious Acquarello in Fabriano event in Bologna, Italy in April 2023.

Eddington’s award-winning paintings and prints can be found in private and public collections on five continents. Two of her paintings of the rock band U2 are part of The Little Museum Of Dublin’s permanent collection. She has shown her work in numerous one-person shows and group exhibitions in China, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and the United States, including the Illinois State Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Quotes!

"I have never seen watercolors with the technical mastery Kelly Eddington commands. There is also so much heart and such an embrace of color." -- Roger Ebert

"Oh, that's so cool. Isn't that brilliant?" -- Bono