Student Art Poster Winner

2022 Edmonds Arts Festival Student Art Poster Winner

Maria-Sophie Heidenreich, Junior – Edmonds-Woodway High School

Maria-Sophie Heidenreich’s watercolor painting, titled “The Visitor” was selected to be this year’s Edmonds Arts Festival Student Exhibit Poster. Her work will be the embassador piece representing over 1,000 entries of kindergarten through twelfth grade in this year’s exhibit. Maria-sohpie is currently a junior at Edmonds-Woodway High School. Posters with the image of “The Visitor” will be available for purchase at the Festival Store during Festival hours, June 17-19. Her original will be on display in the Frances Anderson Center, lower level.

When asked about her work, Maria-Sophie shared the following:
When I think of my artistic goals for the future I want to create a story in my work through the interaction of person and landscape and create an appreciation for the mundane moments of life, like standing outside a house with a basket. My most meaningful interactions with art have occurred in this way; whether old or new, I am drawn to pieces that highlight the beauty in ordinary things. That is what I aspire towards, and what inspired me to start introducing people in my paintings. I created the woman from my imagination and drew on a mingling of reference photos for the lighting, background, and coloration of the landscape. I wanted to evoke comfort through warm light, bright colors, and an antique, old world flare to the architecture and garments.

I was drawn to watercolor because of the unpredictability of the paints, how the flowing of the colors creates an element of surprise that can be influenced, but not controlled. I adore the immersion of painting, throwing myself over a piece of paper for hours, utterly unaware of the passage of time. This accompanies the satisfaction of having created something, the feeling of ‘I did that,’ followed by ‘what else could I do?’

I still have my first attempts with watercolor from when I decided that this was what I was going to be good at. I initially attempted to mimic Bob Ross but then moved on to local watercolorists that captured the mixture of hard and soft edges I wanted to master. Every painting has been an improvement thus far as I have worked on these techniques through trial and error. I want to achieve a level of skill that allows me to paint everything I can imagine, unrestricted and free.