Watercolour artist and tutor Nigel Street demonstrated his expertise in the medium as Made is Ross’ Private View.

With only shades of blue, his work demonstrated the range of textures of seas, rivers, and lakes. With his crafted brush strokes, he captured the wind, as did the sails in the ships in the pictures.

The potential of watercolour was realised in how movement and light were captured in Nigel’s pieces. As a teacher Nigel as a highly developed and certain philosophy around his medium.

He said: “I have been through all stages of learning about watercolour and am sad to see so many potential painters give up because they are not well instructed, or misled by so-called experts from books, or seeking progress by buying more paints and paraphernalia. My teaching emphasis is to ensure that students learn how the colours and pigments work together in a simple process which rapidly progresses to understanding the art, using good, loaned equipment to produce good pictures from the basic to the more complex. My approach is not called ‘Understanding Watercolour’ for nothing.”

Nigel was voted Aspire Magazine watercolourist of the year 2014 but started, as many do, by buying a DIY book and slavishly following the instructions. He returned to watercolour after a lengthy break due to work, but rapidly hit a plateau in his progress. Realising the drawbacks of trying to learn from books, he developed his skills by learning more formally about the landscape, sky, and trees in the Lake District with Keith Fenwick, and by studying the medium and subjects in more detail with the late, renowned Bob Kilvert.