Hailing from the small town of Silver Creek, New York, Ron Thurston’s childhood was one of imagination and solitude. Being a shy person allowed him to live in his own little world where he could “be something, do something or create something, and get recognized for it,” he says. He made the move to Pittsburgh to study at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he intended to become a famous illustrator known for working in black and white. After meeting an advertising instructor who painted small watercolor landscapes for fun, his art career trajectory shifted. Thurston dreamed of joining the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society and exhibiting his works at a gallery. After graduating from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Thurston worked as a commercial illustrator where he created corporate material. “I was happy that I was an artist and was working, but there was still something missing,” Thurston says. After seven years of working as an illustrator he joined the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society (PWS) where he found the missing piece. Participating in shows, meeting other artists, and serving as PWS president gave him new opportunities in the artistic world. Come the 1990s, Thurston’s job as a commercial illustrator lost value due to computers growing in popularity. He became a freelance illustrator, where he was able to spend time mastering his watercolor technique. His collection of sketches, photographs, awarded paintings, and failed paintings serves as a resource pool for composing new artworks. Choosing from piles of paper snippets and photos, he will sketch a rough idea of his next painting with color washes and simple linework. He will then scan the mockups and continue to collage pieces together in Photoshop to create his reference image. Thurston is particularly interested in color palettes. “I didn’t set out to be good with color,” Thurston says, “Truth is, I was afraid of using color and of any talk about color theory.” Today, he enjoys deliberately breaking traditional color expectations in his paintings to keep things looking surprising and intriguing. Using anywhere between ten to twenty different tubes of paint, Thurston will mix, dilute, and stamp his colors onto watercolor paper. He will often test the colors he’s made onto scraps of paper, which he keeps and adds to his collection of papers to create future paintings. He describes his paintings as “one foot in reality,” where drama, movement, abstractions, and questions take center stage. Thurston currently lives in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, where he continues to exhibit with the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society, the American Watercolor Society, and Mark Rengers Gallery, as well as teach watercolor courses at local and national levels.