My name is Nicholas de Maid, and I dabble in watercolour, many of which you will see on the walls of my daughter's house, Ad. Astra, which for several years was my wife's and my home.

I have a range of limited-edition prints and cards and exhibit now at my studios in Wadhurst East Sussex and on Arran in Scotland depending on where I am at the time!!

I hope you enjoy looking through some of my work and if you are interested in anything do get in touch. My number is 07900 66 1778

GREETINGS CARDS

I have two styles of cards one is the traditional style with a picture on the front which cost £2.50 each plus postage and then there are some more individual ones that I think are quite fun and they spread across both the front and back of the card and feature my long narrow paintings and some of my photo work. These are £3.50 each

LIMETED EDITION PRINTS

Prices include postage to UK addresses only, please, if you are thinking of ordering, give me a call to check availability. 079 00 66 1778

The slide beneath this text show a few of over one hundred limited edition prints that myself and a very talented artist James Taylor have incorporated into a book entitled Dazelling Identities.

The credit for this painstaking project has to go to James who spent many, many long hours, days, weeks bringing together all the information in the book which gives potted histories of all the ships (all of which were real ships that served during the Two World Wars.

The book is available to purchase for £??? and each limited edition print which has an image size of 47 x 18 cm is also available

Well I was lucky enough to have a Mother and grandfather who were talented artists... so any talent I may have was in the genes and nothing to do with me!!

as a boy I was never the brightest of students, so when it came to choosing my A level options, I decided that art seemed like a good way to gently cruise through the last two years of my education. As it turned out I was privileged to be taught by an inspirational tutor and what had started out as an easy option turned into a passion for watercolour perspective and architecture.

I became totally focused and disregarded every other aspect of school life in favour of my art.

School over, I went to work and that was pretty much the end of my painting. I trained as a building surveyor and then went into the family business where I remained until 1996 when I retired at the tender age of 41 and focussed my efforts on renovating old, interesting, unusual buildings which often became our place of residence!

It was at about this time that I happened upon an exhibition by The Society of Botanical Artists at Westminster Hall London. As the saying goes it blew my mind; I was hooked and promised myself that one day I would paint like that!

It was about five years later that I first exhibited with the society up at Westminster Hall and continued to do so for several years going on to be in the first intake of their diploma course which I am happy to say I graduated in!

Now I paint maybe a couple of pictures a year, often they are large, detailed and almost inevitably take months to complete.