Let’s start with the little ones as they should always have a place in events like these. A table laid out in the middle of the gallery with what they need to create their own portrait of a loved one. A little girl was busy creating her portrait with her father’s arm lovingly draped around her chair.

And from there to a few of my favourites of this year. The stunning portrait of Josephine, daughter of the artist in what is a quintessential Queensland setting. It could have been me on my deck …at a much younger age, another life even.

An outright winner – Here we meet Pat Hoffie a well known and established artist with her father 101 and her mother – a joyous birthday celebration. A leafy back garden, the much loved pavlova and these smiling, loving faces slightly leaning into one another with their ridiculous party hats which Pat apparently makes bigger and better every year. Delightful.

This next one is a portrait of gratitude. In a difficult time in the painter’s life Anna J showed up for her. So she is depicting Anna here with Maggie, the dog in a quiet loving moment.

This next one is on the periphery of portrait art but part of the new digital art forms which are accepted. This is a digital print on lycra fabric. What is unusual about this artwork are the eyes of the clown. They are actually upside down and looking down at you. Apparently this is called the “Thatcher Effect / Illusion” and I was so taken by this strange fact I had to share it with you.

The Thatcher Effect is an optical illusion where edits to facial features (like flipped eyes and a-flipped mouth) look completely normal when an image is upside down, but become grotesque and obviously distorted when turned right-side up. You might well ask why it’s called this.In the 1980s Prof. Peter Thompson created this effect almost by accident using scissors and glue on discarded election posters of Margaret Thatcher. If anyone wants to read a little more into this go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/bang/article_thatcher.shtml

My final portrait for this blog is “Reflections” by Elysia Love Anderson a proud descendant of the Kamilaroi tribe. She painted herself in the centre and then outlines, based on old photos of each of her ancestors. Her great grandfather in red, great great grandmother in yellow and great great grandfather in black.

I liked that concept very much and of course it is true of all of us.