Every Thursday morning, a group of artists gather at Crestmead’s PCYC.
Between 20 and 30 local artists, covering a broad spectrum of age groups, attend to draw and paint using mediums including watercolour, oil pastels, and acrylic.
Anne Sheddan paints at the sessions – her favourite subject matter includes birds and water scenes.
“I like to paint birds and water scenes, like boats,” she said.
“I’m doing pastels at the moment for another change or challenge, but I’ve done acrylic and oils.
“I’ve done some Australian native birds and some New Zealand birds.”
At Easter, Ms Sheddan painted a picture of a bilby for her granddaughter, which Ms Sheddan says she was very happy with.
Ms Sheddan began attending the group as a beginner, although some in the group have been taught to draw and paint by “extremely well-known people,” she said.
“Some of them had some quite good formal training, and others just started as beginners and enthusiastic people.”
Ms Sheddan doesn’t consider herself to be an experienced painter and described herself as “intermediate”.
“I’m quite happy being in that space. That means I’ve still got things I can learn.”
Supporting each other is an important value the group champions, Ms Sheddan said.
“It’s a very friendly group, and they all kind of help each other, so it’s fairly social.
“People get the encouragement that they might like for improving their work [and] people are willing to help each other.
“People walk around and look at other people’s work, and they might make a positive suggestion as to how they could improve their work, or people are open to asking questions of other people.”
The group meets from 8.30am-12pm every Thursday.
