Iris Edey works on another transparent watercolor piece at home. Submitted photo

Sequim Gazette staff

The beauty of painting in watercolors, according to Iris Edey, is that you never really know what you’re going to end up with.
 

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“In many respects, you’re working within water — you cannot control it like oil and pastels,” she said. “You have wonderful results and terrible mistakes. It’s not something you can learn overnight. And I’m still learning.”

The 30-plus-year veteran of the arts brings her watercolor art to The Gallery at the Fifth through March, with an artist’s reception from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, March 6.

Edey, a British-born artist who came to the United States in 1974, has trained herself since 1980 in the disciplines of transparent watercolor painting and botanical illustration.

Combined with her talent for pen-and-ink drawing, these have resulted in sketchbooks filled with drawings from life that form the basis for her many paintings and have gained her an international reputation as a book illustrator.

A Sequim resident for the past 20 years, Edey hosts this show in memory of her husband, Tony Edey, who died 18 months ago.

Iris Edey brings 10 new works of art and some favorites to The Gallery, all in her traditional style — sketches in pen and ink with added watercolor to finish. A career dressmaker in London’s West End, Edey said she fostered her eye for art as she and her husband, an underground mining engineer, traveled the world.

With a world of botanicals to draw from, Edey said she used her background in fashion design for her art.
“I can’t draw straight lines; I draw curves.”

The Gallery at the Fifth hosts artists each month throughout the year.