Winning artist hasn't lost touch

ROSEWOOD painter Tammy Lopuszynski has taken out the inaugural Lowood Open Door Gallery art competition.

Rosewood artist Tammy Lopuszynski has won champion and first prizes for her paintings in the Open Door Gallery’s inaugural art competition. . Picture: Sarah Harvey

ROSEWOOD painter Tammy Lopuszynski has taken out the inaugural Lowood Open Door Gallery art competition.

It's an impressive result for someone who hadn't touched a brush in more than 15 years.

Ms Lopuszynski won the champion and first place for two of her pieces.

The news blew her away.

"I was just in shock when it was announced. I really couldn't believe it," she said.

"I did paint a bit with oils more than 15 years ago, but hadn't done it since.

"And that was with oils. This time I was using watercolours so it was very different."

Her champion painting, Wild and Free, took her only a week to paint.

The painting depicts a scene of wild horses running through dusty plains.

The first art competition run by the Open Door Gallery had a strong response with more than 70 works of art on show and up for sale.

The pieces were entered over seven categories including abstract, flora, portraits, landscapes and sea scenes, with more than 20 entries in the landscape category alone.

While she hadn't painted for more than a decade, art remained one of Ms Lopuszynski's passions.

"It's only just recently I got back into paintings," she said.

"But I just love it. It's something I really enjoy to do.

"So to win these awards was just amazing. I still can't really believe it to tell the truth."

Open Door Gallery committee member Dorothy Galetti said the competition had been a great success.

"We had 74 entries for our first competition and we were quite proud of that," she said.

"The idea behind it was to try and bring art to Lowood and I think we definitely did that.

"There's not much of this in the area, so it was a bit unique and people responded to that really well."

Ms Galetti said the artists who submitted their work were of the highest quality.

"The quality of the art was very good. I was very impressed by all the work we had submitted."

The competition was run through the Lowood Lions Club which also runs the Open Door Gallery.

Ms Galetti said while the inaugural competition had been a lot of work, after receiving great feedback from the community and artists they were already looking to the future.

"We're hoping it will become an annual thing.

"It was a lot of work but we've been told such great things we're definitely looking at it happening every year."

Originally published as Winning artist hasn't lost touch