In 2004, Ann Mary did a fresco course for one week in Rousillon in an old ochre factory, now an art school called ‘Okhra’.  The tutor was Solene Delahousse, the gifted daughter of a friend who had studied fresco for a year in Italy before launching her own business.  This course was such fun that it started both Ann Mary and Willem who subsequently helped her to mix fresco mortars, to pursue more courses in lime finishes and working with traditional methods from different countries. 

Willem also studied with Solene and learnt ‘tadelakt’, ‘stuc de Mantoue’, false marble painting and ‘sgraffito’.  Ann Mary’s first fresco was a large painting on the neighbour’s barn for practice.  In addition to putting frescoes on walls interior and exterior, Ann Mary also experimented with frescoes on trees for ‘Land’art’ in association with ‘Campagn’art of Villereal’. To date, she is the only person to have promoted this form of Land’art, allowing frescoes to degrade naturally on trees until the tree shrugs them off in small pieces. 

In 2008 Ann Mary did a fresco on the Mairie wall of Mazieres-Naresse, the place where she has had the longest association of any town, having bought a ruin there in 1974.