West Woodburn artist in Christmas art tour

Like its summer counterpart, the Christmas art tour is an artist-run venture in which artists open their studios to a curious public.

But there is a fundamental difference.

"In the summer the art tour is at heart educational," says Mary Ann, sitting in her studio in West Woodburn. "It's about people coming and discovering and seeing how you work, and the sales, although very important to the artist, are largely incidental.

"However, the Christmas tour is all about Christmas shopping with a difference."

The studios themselves range from the homely to the spectacular, with artists displaying their work perched on coastal crags and even in Hexham Abbey.

"The thing that artists do is that they create an arty environment, and try to make people feel welcome," says Mary Ann.

"Hopefully, they'll find a sort of treasure trove, rather than the usual racks of stuff that everyone buys.

"We'll get all the family involved, my daughter will be serving mulled wine and mince pies."

Raised in Gosforth, Newcastle, Mary Ann's nascent interest in the natural world that informs her painting was encouraged from an early age.

"I come from a nature-loving family. We're always looking under stones, looking after birds with sore wings.

"My parents were very knowledgeable about animals and birds and plants and passed that on to me - out of five children, two of us are artists," she says.

It was only after she lost everything that Mary Ann began to transform her passion into her profession.

"Everything went pear-shaped between the ages of 18 and 25. My degree went by the wayside, two children came along with a disastrous marriage. I didn't really have a career.

"When my marriage fell apart I had absolutely nothing to fall back on, but by then I'd started painting and it took off from there. I became self-employed, and from very modest beginnings, built it up gradually.

"I wanted to find a way to make it profitable, but also to develop my techniques, as well as bringing up my children."

Mary Ann's artwork is renowned for its colour and vibrancy, with her characteristic animals leaping off the page. She is proud to have subverted popular perceptions of the medium.

"People often ask me if I run out of ideas using watercolours - absolutely not. I could spend the rest of my life painting moles and marmosets. I think watercolours are such a wonderful medium. People talk about dabbling with watercolours, but they don't talk about dabbling with sculpture or glass or oils.

"They're seen as more serious. But watercolour is the most exciting, thrilling and experimental medium."

The Christmas Art Tour is the perfect showcase for Mary Ann's work, and artists like her across our region.

It's also an ideal opportunity for us to shop for those special seasonal gifts in the place where they were originally created.

"The great thing about going to an artist's place for gifts is that the recipient won't know how much the gift has cost.

"It just shows that if you find something that's hand-made or created locally, it just says so much more because you've selected something and chosen it."

The full details of the tour are available at www.networkartists.org.uk.

Download a leaflet here with dates of the events.