Painting POETRY
From being whisked away on a private jet to draw a buffalo jump in the foothills of Canada’s Saskatchewan Mountains to meeting indigenous Amerindians while painting waterfalls in the Guyanese rainforest, Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis had some extraordinary experiences in the noughties as an official tour artist for HRH The Prince of Wales. Today, the royal heir continues to collect Mary Anne’s work, but the artist is much more likely to be found back home in Lewes, tramping across the rolling hills of England’s South Downs with a five-foot-square board balanced on her head.
Scratched by thistles and licked by the rough tongues of cattle, her supports are plunged into perilous positions, but this is all part of the process. “It’s a hell of a lot to carry and I nearly take off if it’s windy,” Mary Anne admits. “But I need to just sit there, really early in the morning, and just
