Nicole Stevenson

Nicole studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1983-87 graduating with a BA(Hons) in Drawing and Painting, after which she attended the Bolton Institute from 1994-95 and obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education for Art & Design.

Since leaving further education, Nicole has been a working artist for over 30 years and has always been interested in life by the coast, guiding her to develop a whimsical, quirky style which reflect the romantic ideas we have when holidaying at the coast.

My paintings are illusions of a life spent scrying into the sparkle of water in harbours, canals and the sea.

I'm interested in light, reflecting on the water, the shadows and glows on boats and buildings. Reflective, refractive, translucence and luminous qualities that I try to convey by using layers of watercolour, high pigment acrylic paints, pure pigments, pearlescent inks and collage.

I spend time in the places I want to paint, doing smaller watercolour and ink paintings, charcoal sketches and taking photographs, I then work in the studio on heavy, stretched watercolour paper building up layers of watercolour, pearlescent inks, collage, marble dust, pure pigment and acrylics to build up rich depth of colours and textures. I like to have areas of texture and paint build up and other areas where the paint is thinly layered to give a rich and unique depth to the colours. I juxtapose glossy with matt surfaces. This gives a life to my paintings that, if you own one, you can watch change as the light in a room moves round, illuminating the image in an ever changing way.

Inspiration for Nicole's current work has come from searching harbours throughout Britain, Marrakech and Venice - she loves painting the contrasting colours, light cast on buildings, boats and the water.