STROUD artist Michael Williams has been awarded the second prize of £6000 in the UK's largest and most prestigious watercolour competition - the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.

Now in its 28th year, the competition aims to celebrate and reward excellence and originality in the medium of watercolour.

The first prize of £10,000, is this year awarded to Akash Bhatt, for Blue Room, one of a series of drawings and paintings of the artist's mother.

Michael Williams, who is based in Thrupp, has been awarded the second prize of £6,000 for Land, Sea, Island, which depicts the Welsh island of Skomer across a turbulent stretch of water called Jack Sound.

Michael was born in India, but later moved to London, where he taught Art History at Central Saint Martins and then Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.

In the ‘70s he moved to Powys which, he claims, “led to a shift from a 'pop art' tendency to a kind of Ruskinian landscape painting”.

Michael explains the intricate way he constructed Land, Sea, Island: “I am now using a language of 'striation' by which all representation is first taken through bands of underpainting. Between the bands there are lines or 'threads of light', which give movement and an embedded structure to what is also a precise take on the details of the world.”

A selection of all the shortlisted works – 90 works by 80 artists – will be on show at the Mall Galleries, London from 14 – 19th September 2015. The London show will be followed by The Smith & Williamson Tour to venues across the UK, including Castle Fine Art, Birmingham (10 - 18 October 2015) and Guildford House Gallery, Guildford (14 November 2015 - 2 January).