Enjoy Easter Arts and Craft

While Christmas is all stress and flurry, Easter is a time to kick-back, relax and take the opportunity to rest, eat some chocolates and hopefully make the most of sunny Autumn weather.

With Good Friday and Easter Sunday both days when businesses are closed, it’s also a great opportunity to spend some time pottering in the garden or perhaps dragging out the painting and drawing box and indulging in some arts and crafts.

It’s certainly where you’ll find Ingrid Boot, who tutors with Estuary Arts Centre, teaching intermediate to advanced oil and acrylics and painting to adults.

She has been tutoring at the centre for about 18 months and before that ran arts sessions at Evelyn Paige Retirement Village for about 14 years, before taking a break just before Covid.

Ingrid has been working as a professional artist for more than two decades.

She says people attend her art courses for a variety of reasons.

“Some come to learn, while some come to be social, or bring a painting they want to complete and I help them learn the skills.”

A large part of it is also helping people build confidence, she says. Even those who come for social reasons start to see how to build their skills and build confidence in their abilities.

“Painting is like therapy, painting. It transports you to a different place completely. I paint every single day, and I go a little bit mad if I don’t do it and I understand how important it is for my sanity and it’s very good for your brain because you are relaxed, because you are creative, but also because you thinking really hard.”.

Ingrid says at first many students are shy about being creative but she encourages them to embrace their creativity.

“It’s teaching artists that they are all the same, that they think it’s bad because we all self-deprecate but I tell them to just go for it, because it really doesn’t matter what the outcome is, just go and play.”

She says go in with an open mind and no set outcomes, experiment and make a mess, “you just have to enjoy”.

The Covid pandemic saw a lot of people take up hobbies, Ingrid says, and she hopes it a trend that continues. During the pandemic, she painted every day as a way to get through, she says.

Ingrid teaches weekly at Estuary Art Centre and has her own art studio open by appointment in Ōrewa.

More about Estuary Art courses: www.estuaryarts.org