I recently started going to art exhibitions with friends from my art group.

We try to work out how on earth the artists managed to do such an amazing job – then go back and do our own take on the work. It’s great fun. We aren’t aiming to be original – just to learn something new, and take ourselves out of our comfort zone.

This was what I came up with after visiting the Fred Williams exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. I loved the freedom of dashing those trees on with so much freedom – and I used my favourite colours, rather than his usual palette of earth colours. I love the brights!

And so was born my “30 x 30 project” – 30cm by 30cm happening to be the size of very cheap canvases from our local bargain shop. I like the idea of putting together a collage of squares of all sorts of images on my wall. That way it doesn’t matter whether any particular picture is any sort of success in itself – it is the mass effect which gives it excitement. I have also been able to rope in my daughter to contribute, so it is a great excuse to use her beautiful artwork too (even if her pictures are better than mine sometimes, as my husband kindly pointed out …!).

I’ll let you know how I go.