Canvas Rebel’s Meet Jessica Lily

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Watercolor Live Full Scholarship 2025

In 2025, Lily was invited by Watercolor Live with a Full Scholarship in the General Artist Category to join the 4 day educational program.

I live to paint! I am dedicated to building a career in watercolor arts, as a local community art class teacher, participation in local group and solo shows, giving artist talks on portrait art skills in watercolor and being a volunteer for our local art societies like the Georgia Watercolor Society and the Portrait Society of Atlanta.

In 2023, I finally received a diagnosis for a genetic rare medical condition that had been affecting my entire working adult life. Equipped with a diagnosis for a type of Dysautonomia called Orthostatic Hypotension, I finally learned that the reason I was forced to end my more than a decade long career as a photographer was because my blood pressure was dropping each time I stood up. I am finally able to receive the treatment that I need to have a healthy and functioning body and mind.

I returned to watercolor painting after many years as an adult while I was still sick, in 2022, with a burning need to paint a fantasy portrait of my daughter. But, once I had been bitten by the watercolor bug, I, like many, just could not stop. Now that I am well, I am finding so many open doors in this community. My heart is filled so deeply by painting and teaching in community locally in Atlanta.

I am a person who is motivated by skill building. I paint in a more realistic style, and love to render and experience the effect of light. Most of my paintings are examining and caring for our human condition. My portraits are strengths based and celebrate that good part of our soul, our deepest and most loving humanity. My large botanical series are an on-going metaphor for my own self-portrait. “Sage Wisdom: A Rose for Myself and My Older Self” examines my own aging and relationship with decay and bloom.

Dedicated to learning, I am regularly taking workshops with artists that I admire. In 2024, I took online workshops with Kathleen Giles, Marney Ward and Daniela Wernock. I would love to be the recipient of this scholarship. I believe I would put it to good use, bolster my growing watercolor skill set, and in turn pass my new skills onto my beloved local community.