A Working Studio, Not a Showroom

The studio sits at the end of a converted stone barn in the Welsh Marches. Its north-facing window is the only daylight, and the walls are painted a warm mid-grey. A long oak bench holds jam jars, a white ceramic plate for mixing, and two water pots — one clean, one dirty. On a shelf, a leather falconry hood rests beside jesses and a small brass bell. The room smells of wet paper, cedar and saddle soap.

Marianne has painted British wildlife for over thirty years. She works standing at a sloping desk for drawing and at a heavy easel for painting. Two sheets of watercolour paper are stretched on plywood boards, gummed tape still damp at the edges. "I stretch paper the night before," she says. "Soak it for ten minutes, tape it wet, let it dry slowly. If you rush that, the paper buckles and washes pool."

Reference Materials: Feathers, Field Notes and Falconry Kit

Every painting begins away from the studio. Marianne carries an A6 sketchbook, a 2H pencil and a waterproof pen. She notes time, weather, wind and light. "A kestrel hovering at 08:40 in a force three is a different shape from one at noon in still air," she says.

• Field sketches: quick pencil studies, later annotated with colour notes. "Warm grey back, rufous tail, black band."
• Printed photographs: small, 6x4 inches, never enlarged. "Big prints lie about feather softness."
• Study skins: a loan box from a regional museum, held under licence. A kestrel wing, a tawny owl, a sparrowhawk.
• Moulted feathers: collected on walks or given by local falconers. A peregrine primary, a red kite secondary, a buzzard's downy breast feather.
• Falconry kit: hoods, jesses, swivels, bells and a worn gauntlet. "The leather tells you how the bird moved."

She uses three references for every bird: a sketch, a photograph and a real object. "If you only use one, you paint a symbol. Three forces you to look." The falconry heritage is practical here. A hood's stitching, a jess's twist, the weight of a swivel — all drawn from life.

Lighting and Colour: The North Window and the Neutral Room

Light is the studio's first tool. The north window gives cool, even light with no direct sun. On bright days, Marianne half-draws a linen blind. "Direct sun makes watercolour look chalky. You cannot judge a wash." In winter, she adds a daylight-balanced lamp rated at 5600K and a high colour rendering index. "Warm bulbs lie. A crimson wash looks brown under them."

She mixes on a white ceramic plate, never plastic. "Plastic beads water and stains. Ceramic shows the true colour." She tests every wash on scrap of the same paper, dried with a hairdryer on cool. A piece of neutral grey mountboard sits beside the easel. "Squint through a hole in the grey card. If the bird's eye disappears, the value is wrong."

Raking light from a small side lamp shows the paper's grain and dry brush height. She stops painting by 3:30 on winter afternoons. "The light fails before you notice. You make mud." In summer, she starts earlier and closes the blind at noon.

Daily Routines: From First Light to Last Wash

Marianne is at her desk by 6:30 with tea. She walks for half an hour with a sketchbook, often along a hedgerow or canal towpath. "That walk is not optional. It fills the tank." Back by 8:30, she draws for two hours before touching paint. "Two hours of drawing for every hour of painting. That is the ratio."

Morning is for wet-in-wet: skies, distant hills, the soft underlayer of a bird's breast. She lays washes on damp paper and lets them dry naturally. Afternoon is for dry brush: feather detail, the glint of an eye, the edge of a beak. She glazes with thin, transparent layers. "Watercolour is a patience game. You build light by subtraction."

By 4pm she cleans brushes — sable rounds in sizes 2, 6 and 12, a squirrel mop, a synthetic for masking fluid — and changes the water. She reviews the day's work against her field notes. "No phone before 10am. One painting at a time. A hairdryer on cool only." The falconry heritage shows in her routine too. "In falconry, you read a bird's weight and mood. In the studio, you read the paper's dampness. Both are about attention."

The Falconry Heritage in the Watercolours

Falconry is a heritage of patience, leather and balance. Marianne's paintings often include a hood, a block perch, a cadge or a gauntlet. These are anchors that tell you how the bird was held, weighed and carried. "I paint a hood as I would a bird's eye: wet-in-wet for softness, dry brush for stitching. The bell's glint is a single reserved white. The gauntlet's worn cuff tells a story."

She studies historical falconry art — medieval manuscripts, eighteenth-century portraits — for the shape of hoods and the twist of jesses. "The old painters knew the kit because they lived with it. I want that knowledge in my brush." Fieldcraft from falconry also shapes her wildlife work. "You learn to approach a wild bird without flushing it. You learn to wait. That patience is the real inheritance."