Five painters from Tea Gardens Hawks Nest and Karuah entered the competition at the Myall River Festival on October 27.

The artists had a day to complete an artwork along the banks of the Myall River.

A $500 cash first prize was donated by Country Energy and a paddle for two second prize was donated by Lazy Paddles Kayaking Tours.

Susan Brazier of Tea Gardens, Emilie Tseronis of Karuah, Sarah Davison of Hawks Nest, Dorothy Hyde of Tea Gardens and Jen Nichols of Hawks Nest all spent the day painting in order to submit entries for the competition.

Ann Stewart from Crighton Properties and Sue Lawson from Indigo Blue judged the competition at the end of the day.

Second prize was awarded to Sarah Davison for her semi-abstract representation of the river-scape and watercraft. The winning entry on the day was an oil painting by Dorothy Hyde depicting the view of the Myall River looking north past Witt Island.

When Dorothy first saw the competition advertised in the Nota she believed it was something she would be interested in.

“I thought I would enjoy doing that and it’s nice to get involved,” Dorothy said.

Dorothy is a Tea Gardens resident and has been selling her paintings for 25 years.

The spot that she picked to paint for the competition was one she had had her eye on for some time.

“I had driven past the spot and parked under the tree, I knew I wanted the morning light and where I wanted the tide to be,” Dorothy said.

Dorothy says her major challenge was completing the oil painting in one day, because the oil stays wet for such a long time meaning that when she was filling in details the paint around her was still wet, making parts very difficult.

“All around it was a pretty hard task,” Dorothy said.

Dorothy is a member of Plein Air Painters of Australia and likes to paint scenes as they are in the open.

Dorothy was in a group of painters in Sydney, started by artist Allan Waite, who would paint scenes all around Sydney. Dorothy has also travelled through NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Adelaide painting.

“The competition was designed to attract local artists to the foreshore for the day,” event coordinator, Shona Hunter Howarth said.

The competition will go ahead at the 2008 Myall River Festival.