Charlene Nickels is primarily a water color artist, born in Toronto, Ontario, but at the age of two her Maritime parents decided “back home” was the place to raise their family and moved back to Charlottetown, PEI. She returned to Ontario in the early 80’s and is now settled in Brampton, Ontario. In the small community where she grew up there were no art schools but she was fortunate to study with well know Island artists as well as benefiting from fantastic art programs through her school years. She started painting in oils at a very early age, in grade three, and it opened a whole new wonderful world for her leading to many different creative media.
Fifteen years ago she felt the need to get back to painting, to put balance back into her life, and decided to try something she had never worked with, water color. A beautiful and sensitive medium, she found watercolor to be a joy and it has become her passion. To a lesser degree, she also works with acrylics. Her goal with water colors, is to inspire her emotional response to the subject matter and relate, as best she can, the connection she as for the subject and to impart a sense of serenity, and hopefully evoking an inner calmness.
Charlene would describe herself as a Realist painter and the subject matter of her paintings is inspired by photo’s taken of things that have either caught her eye because they’ve connected in some way, or things that have a direct personal connection. Her love of detail and strong colors proves to be quite a challenge with water color but she finds the results rewarding.