Withdraw and Go Into Flow: Tips from Local Artist Suzanne Edwards
For local watercolor artist Sue Edwards, creating art is about stepping away from the noise of daily life and entering a state of complete absorption where time seems to stand still.
“Creating art is the best part of life right now,”
Sue shares, and her philosophy is one we can all learn from, whether we’re seasoned painters or just picking up a brush for the first time.
Sue shared her approach to art, which combines a disciplined sketchbook practice with a joyful curiosity about the world around her. Her work, which spans urban sketching, florals, and expressive portraits, is a testament to the power of showing up and letting go.
Here are Sue’s top tips for finding your own creative flow.
Tip 1. Keep a Sketchbook Everywhere You Go
You might wonder, Why do you bring your sketchbook everywhere? For Sue, the answer is simple: inspiration doesn’t wait for a convenient time and place. Isn’t it participating in life with painting better than playing on your phone?
“I keep a sketchbook and create lots of urban sketching, florals, and portraits to capture the emotion and nuance of each face,” she explains. Whether she’s drawing in person or from an online Zoom Session, the sketchbook is her constant companion. It’s a place to experiment without pressure, a visual journal that trains the eye to see details others might miss. By drawing on the go, you learn to capture the essence of a scene or a person quickly, which in turn loosens up your style and keeps your creative instincts sharp.
Tip 2. Be Curious About Your Subject Matter
It’s easy to get bored painting the same things over and over. Sue’s antidote? Deep curiosity. This is especially true in her portrait work.
“Portraiture gives back with each face,” she says. Every subject presents a new landscape of expressions, bone structure, and hidden emotion. By approaching each face with a sense of wonder, the painting process shifts from a technical chore to an act of discovery. Whether you are painting a person, a flower, or a city street, ask yourself questions: What makes this unique? How can I convey its mood? Curiosity fuels the desire to pick up the brush.
Tip 3. Choose your favorite mediums: The Magic of a “Messy” Medium
Why Watercolor? Why Gouache? Why Ink?
While Sue works with various mediums other than watercolor. Her most used mediums include watercolor, but she also regularly picks up pen, ink, water-soluble graphite, and markers, depending on the time and availability to use water. Both watercolor and gouache can be translucent. “While gouache can be opaque, it is often soooo messy, cracking and falling out of palettes or carrying around so many tubes.” she explains. This versatility of mediums makes creating exciting. Unlike traditional watercolor, gouache is opaque, which allows you to layer light colors over dark colors. It gives you the freedom to correct mistakes and build texture. Watercolor can have a mind of its own but Sue embraces the “messy” nature of each medium as part of the journey toward flow.
Tip 4. Embrace a Limited Palette
Sue advocates for restraint to achieve harmony in your work and uses a limited pallet. Her core three colors for portraits are:
Quinacridone Sienna, Perylene Violet, and Indigo (by Daniel Smith)
With just these three, she can mix a surprising range of neutrals and vibrant shades of skin tones. By limiting your palette, you force yourself to learn how colors actually mix together, resulting in work that feels cohesive and intentional rather than chaotic.
5. The Big Brush Secret
When working in watercolor or gouache, it’s natural to want to use a tiny brush for tiny details. Sue suggests doing the opposite: use a large brush.
Working with a larger brush forces you to simplify. You can’t get lost in the freckles and eyelashes; you have to focus on the big shapes of light and shadow. This is the secret to creating paintings that have impact from across the room. Save the small brush for the very last signature details.
Get to know more about Sue and her many works of art!
Instagram : SueEdwardsStudio
Website :
Suggested Reading from Sue : Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
For those looking to dive deeper into why making art feels so good, she highly recommends the groundbreaking book which explores the state of complete immersion in an activity where you lose track of time, self-doubt vanishes, and the act of creating becomes its own reward. It’s the feeling Sue chases every time she opens her sketchbook, and it’s available to anyone willing to withdraw from distraction and dive into their work.
