Country Homes & Interiors Meets Nicola Watters

by Tara King • 31/08/2016 • Country business

Nicola’s watercolour artwork adds a subtle seaside touch to any room. Her delicate designs are available as prints as well as on a range of home accessories including fine linen cushions, stationery and bone china mugs.

Where are you based?

I divide my time between my farmhouse studio in the Hertfordshire countryside and family homes on the Fylde Coast, Devon and Cornwall.

Describe your workspace.

My studio is one of the main reasons we moved to the 18th century farmhouse that is now our home! There are floor to ceiling windows overlooking the garden, a pond and open countryside. It’s so peaceful, just the sound of birdsong, buzzing bees and bleating sheep!

Summarise your design process.

I like to find ways to display treasures I’ve collected and often arrange them into collages before painting them. A local printer produces my prints and this year I’ve been able to apply my designs to linen and china. I can’t wait to expand these ranges.

Do you have a favourite design?

My Five Blue Mussels watercolour painting (shown above, bottom right). I’ve got such happy memories of this piece. My three children were quite small when I painted this, we’d just returned from a wonderful summer in Cornwall and I’d collected the shells on a day trip to Daymer Bay.

What’s your most prized possession?

It would have to be my collections of ‘natural finds’. From flint and feathers to colourful mussel shells, I display them all in glass jars on my studio windowsill and look to them constantly for inspiration.

How would you describe your own interior style?

New England meets English country farmhouse. Light, uncluttered and with an eclectic mix of paintings and antiques.

Sum up your creative style in three words.

Colourist, decorative and still-life.