About

I create portraits that are emotional, unusual, and tell stories about identity. My approach to watercolor is meticulous, and I love creating difficult painting problems that no one else would want to solve. Lately these problems have involved my projector, which I use to shoot images onto my subjects. The resulting watercolors become two-in-one paintings, such as my father covered with a farm, my niece inside fireworks, or myself emerging from a nebula or trapped behind stained glass. My current series is called Visionaries and is a tribute to artists I admire. I project the artist’s work onto their face and body, take photos, and create paintings based on them.

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 a hight school 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 over 200,000 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 National Watercolor Society, the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, the Southern Watercolor Society, the Illinois Watercolor Society, and the Watercolor USA Honor Society. She is a WHS board member, and she edits their newsletter. Kelly was a faculty member at Watercolor Live! in 2025. She will be part of the team of watercolor artists representing the United States at the annual Acquarello in Fabriano event in Bologna, Italy in April. In May 2026, she will exhibit a self-portrait as one of the “masters” at International Watercolor Masters in Lilleshall, England.

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, England, 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