Maggie's distinctive style shows through in her pen & ink drawings, most worked up later with watercolour. She seeks always to capture the subject's essence in idiosyncratic, yet realistic fashion.

All her drawings start in situ : Maggie works for hours from her little stool. Since she so much wants to show her subject in a way that lets it be seen for the qualities and the intrinsic worth that it has, she never seeks to portray it as an interpretation that the viewer has to translate.

By the same token, however, she rarely uses photographs, so manages to present the subject or the scene in a way that no-one else has done. Her drawings truly are not like anybody else's.

Whilst her subject matter is so different, nevertheless she feels highly influenced by such masters as Egon Schieler, whose brave use of line she so much admires. It is the his use of strength within his lines that she most reveres.

She also draws in ink, too, so any line that she draws is there for all time : which generates a demand for strong drawing-skill, and for dedication to the capacity to perceive and interpret with confidence.

Andrew Graham-Dixon's series "The Secret of Drawing" (BBC2 - October 2005) is a most welcomed opportunity for people to see into the world and the thinking of the drawing-artist more adequately and more closely than is generally the case. Of special interest in the first programme was his argument that "it's the lifeblood of the visual arts".

All too often, drawing is overlooked as a core and crucial art form. For Maggie and many others, the capacity to draw is an absolutely essential element to one's underpinning foundation of artistic skills, whatever medium one goes on to specialise in. Graham-Dixon points out its importance to the works of major, earth-shifting artists from past times, and even to a heart surgeon of today.