Tarboro watercolors artist Russell Yerkes won Best in Mainsail and $10,000 at the 33rd annual outdoor arts festival last weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"Look at the picture," Yerkes said. "You can tell I was surprised!"

Judge Budd Harris Bishop, director emeritus of the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at University of Florida, singled Yerkes out for his densely painted watercolors that "gave him technical challenges.

"But in the end, it wasn't just the technical skill, it was the outcome, the visual daring, the element of wonder his work produces," Bishop said.

Watercolors is a very unforgiving, a difficult medium to work in. Yerkes has developed a unique style and technique.

In March, Yerkes won Best in Show at the Winter Park, Fla., Sidewalk Art Festival and picked up a check for $2,000.

This show attracts 350,000 visitors and 1,400 artists who vie for the 225 slots to show their work. They select 192 new artists and invite back 33 leading artists.

Yerkes has been invited back several times.

In April, Yerkes won Sunshine Art Magazine’s 12th annual award for his poster promoting the 2007 Mainsale Art Festival.

His next show will in June at the Virginia Becah Broadwalk Art Show.

Yerkes, who paints full time in his house on North Howard Circle, is president-elect of the North Carolina Watercolor Society.

Yerkes moved to Tarboro about four years ago.

"I love it here," he said. "It's quiet and I am able to concentrate on my work.

"It seems no matter where I go, I run into someone who is familiar with Tarboro. They ask how so-and-so is doing. Tarboro is the center of the universe."

Yerkes began painting with fingerpaints as a child, then picked up an interest in watercolors in high school and has painted watercolors ever since. He is self-taught.