Gallery

Born in Sussex in a small village at the foot of the South Downs, my mother told me I began drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil.

Always interested in the natural world, wandering the hills and woods even as a child, I began while still young to try and depict the beauty I saw around me, much to the boredom of my friends who couldn't see the fun in sitting in some field all day trying to draw green hills!

When I was 15 my family moved to Ilkley in Yorkshire, on the edge of the Dales, where I soon found a thriving amateur and professional arts scene, and I began to take my drawing more seriously.

On leaving school I attended Bardford Art College to take a Foundation Course in Art & Design, which was followed by a degree at Leeds Polytechnic, where I attained a B.A.(Hons.) in Graphic Design, specialising in Illustration.

Throughout this time (and despite most of my lecturers efforts to the contrary!) I continued to be mostly interested in natural landscape subject matter and rejected a career in the cut-throat world of the design studio for a quieter existence tramping the hills with sketchbook and pencil.

Unable to bear city life and office hours, and feeling like a caged animal when away from the open moors, I decided to try and make a living from my own paintings.

Concentrating on my favourite subjects of old stone walls and wild, heathery moorland scenes; working part-time in an art shop during the day and a bar at night, and accepting a few commissions to paint peoples pets, I scraped by.

After one or two successful exhibitions, I chanced upon a small, isolated community on the far Northwest coast of Scotland. A land of rock and water, nestled between mountains and sea; full of welcoming people and incredible views; peaceful, rugged and untamed, I knew I had found my place.

Inspired by the timeless grandeur and the dramatic, ever-changing light of this unique region, I struggled to capture its essence, its romance, its timelessness, where each turn of the head brings a view more incredible than the last and where gazing out to sea with the shafts of sunlight playing on the islands and the white foam crashing onto the pink sands can still bring tears to my eyes.

In 1993 I opened my first gallery, Picture Shack, which began life in a large old tin-roffed barn, originally the village kirk. It went from strength to strength, (and fom premises to premises!) for 14 years until, looking for a new artistic challenge, I took the difficult decision to move in another direction and I went to live in Morocco, (another beautiful, yet totally different place!) where I set up Painted Desert sketching holidays. (www.paintingholidaysabroad.com). With these trips up and running, I have now returned to my beloved West coast, and a new Picture Shack in the village of Lochinver.

In the meantime I am enjoying once again wandering and drawing the Coigach and Assynt landscapes I know and love so well.

Mary also runs sketching holidays in Morocco. Painting Holidays abroad