On Thursday we informed you all about Nintendo's plan to get British people to engage with art more by showcasing Art Academy in various locations around the country. According to their research 40% of people are afraid to create art because they feel their skills aren't any good and Nintendo are looking to change this.

Some of the figures they provided were quite interesting and as an art student of sorts (doing an animation course but art is heavily involved) I am both surprised and yet not surprised by what the figures suggest. I know a lot of people are weary of doing art because they think they're not good at it (even people who do a lot of art often feel unsure about their own work) but I agree with Nintendo's sentiment that it should be enjoyed, not criticised.

I had not played Art Academy before Thursday but I had been interested in doing so. While I can't give a detailed report about what the title offers as we were led through a specific introductory lesson the options do seem to allow for anyone to pick it up and try quite easily. You could quite easily become lost for long periods of time using Art Academy and there is enough variety to keep you engaged. This report will be a mix of a hands on of the game and details of what happened that day and while Art Academy is over a year old it has become a focus of Nintendo's due to this tour.

British artist Pam Glew held the art master class that took place just by Westminster Bridge on Southbank and alongside her were some artistic assistants who helped the class of journalists and passer-bys to create their own renditions of the often-painted bridge.

We were shown through the Free Paint mode and we took a photograph of the bridge as our reference. Art Academy allows you to use your own photographs to refer to, displaying them on the top screen as you paint on the bottom. You can also turn on a series of gridlines to help and view the photograph in a number of ways, such as sketch, outline etc.

Once we had our photographs we began work on our masterpieces. We started off by simply putting in some reference lines using a light pencil and gradually building up a better picture before moving onto the paints. As you can't erase paints we were advised that you have to make sure you're ready before you begin.

Art Academy offers a variety of options and tools. There is a range of three pencils (2H, HB and 2B) and two different modes, sharp and blunt, to give a variety of lines. The paint tool is even more extensive with a wide array of colours you can mix, change the thickness of or even completely remove so that you can mix paints on your picture. There are also six different size brushes; three fine points and three flat.

The paint feature also includes the ability to pinpoint an area on your photograph and it shows you the colour. You can then mix your paints and using the interactive colour wheel on the top screen you can faithfully replicate the paint. It takes a bit of getting used to, mostly to try and figure out how to best mix to get what you want, but it is a great feature.

We were given some time to work on our paintings, with the assistance of the artists on hand if we needed them. Alex from Nintendo-Universe and myself enjoyed the process and while he says I did better I liked his more abstract, almost cubist, approach.

It is a shame that our time was short, as a local school were due to enjoy the workshop at 9:30, because as I mentioned earlier we could have quite happily sat there for a while. Art Academy is a unique title and one that I could see being used even by those who aren't big on art. It's handy to have a little art kit on the go and with the game's ability to take photographs and refer to them, either at the time or a later date, it can help anyone who is unsure about their art work.

Pam Glew is quoted in the official press release saying how important art is in life. I agree with her sentiments, although I consider myself creative so perhaps it should come as no surprise, and I do hope that the Create Britain tour is successful in its intention to get the people of Britain creating art.