Eric Ashenhurst was born in Minnesota in 1960, and spent most of his childhood in Itasca, Illinois.  From the moment he could hold a pencil, he was drawing cartoons and entertaining others with his depictions of cartoon characters. 

In high school and college, Eric was busy playing sports, including track, basketball and football, and didn't spend much time with art, except for occasionally drawing characters to make his friends laugh.

After college Eric was employed in packaging sales with no thoughts about art until a few years later he noticed how the years were passing by and he still didn't really do anything about developing his natural talent.  So at the age of 36, with no formal art education, he tried watercolor and found it fascinating and addictive.  He immersed himself in books, videos, anything he could get his hands on to learn more about watercolor.   Eventually he attended workshops from internationally-known instructors Tony Couch and Tom Lynch.   He continues to learn and paint, thinking that the best paintings are still to come.