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Nel Witteman was born and raised in the Netherlands and immigrated to the Okanagan Valley with her husband and two daughters in 1978 and Kaleden, British Columbia became her new home.

Nel has been a volunteer in the Penticton arts community for 20+ years; she has helped the Penticton Art Gallery with their yearly fundraising art auction, is past member of the Penticton Arts Council and for seven years a board member of the Okanagan School for the Arts. Nel has a subtle watercolour style and paints the exquisite landscapes of the beautiful Okanagan valley as well as the Southern Gulf Islands. Although Nel has mostly original watercolours, she also has a few limited edition giclee prints available. Her limited edition giclee on watercolour paper called "This Beautiful Place Called Penticton" celebrates the warm summer colours of the South Okanagan, specifically the view from the Lakeside Hotel looking toward Giants Head mountain in Summerland.

Nel Witteman has had more than forty years experience as a watercolour painter and has given lessons and offered encouragement to many local new artists. For the past few years, Nel has been a part of the "Celebrations of Painting Outdoors" with the group of Plein Air painters as a watercolour artist but in 2012 she has ventured forth with her oil paints, a relatively new medium for her which is rapidly growing closer to her heart. She enjoys the challenges that painting outdoors brings, working with rapidly changing light, weather ranging from cold and wet, or windy, to hot and dry. She feels that oil paints are most suitable for this kind of outdoor painting challenge and feels that this will become a part of her life and her plein air oil paintings now take their place beside her watercolours.