Robert Kirk, commenting on Maggies drawing in Ludlow Art Society's Newsletter, made some very supportive comments.

"I believe a painting benefits from having a part which is understated: yet this is rarely appreciated. "

He goes onto say that whilst he was admiring the picture, a friend said it had been criticised "because of an understated indefinable area which could be visually read as an area of grass or perhaps part of a farmyard or driveway."

To Robert, "the point of the understatement was that it provided a quiet area which focussed attention on some beautifully drawn foreground plants yet afterwards led the eye past some buildings into the distance. The current preoccupation with finicky detail, a result I suspect of unimaginative use of photographs, means that artistic subtlety of this kind often goes unnoticed.

A great pity because Maggie in this painting was teaching a lesson which we all ought to take to heart."

(Did he know at the time that Maggie is in fact a qualified and experienced teacher of art, including drawing, and that she hardly ever works from photographs?)

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