Painter first, teacher by accident.
It started with one neighbour and a kitchen table, and grew slowly into a proper Paddington studio.
A neighbour asked for help with skies.
One Tuesday lesson became six, her pages went from muddy to luminous, and strangers started asking for the same thing. The studio grew out of that kitchen table, one small class at a time.
Mara teaches every class herself. Nothing here is a video recorded once and replayed — if you are in the room, you are getting looked at, and the page in front of you gets a real answer.
Four promises to every student
The rules the studio runs on, whichever course you pick.
Process over product
You are marked on pages filled, never on frames earned.
Small classes
Ten seats at most, so everyone in the room gets looked at.
Honest critique
Kind, specific, and about the page in front of us — never a template reply.
A materials list, not a shopping list
Every lesson works with a starter palette. A supply list goes out on booking, well before the first class.
A term in the studio
Pages, not paintings — a few spreads from an ordinary week.
Paint from life
A still life set up fresh most weeks — fruit, pottery, whatever the light is doing that day.
Room for ten
Easels spaced properly, so nobody is painting over anybody’s shoulder.
The wash
Where most of a lesson actually happens — before a single mark goes down.
Between classes
Brushes live in the studio between terms if you would rather not carry them home.
Small on purpose
These figures have not moved since the studio opened its own door, and that is deliberate.
There is usually a seat left in the next term.
Classes are small on purpose, so the earlier you ask, the better the chance.