Jen Shewring

I probably first started my creative journey as a young person. In my teenage years, I was creating pottery on the weekends, and we had a kiln at home, I would fire it in the kiln and give it out to my friends and family. Then I got into designing my own clothes and making them so that I could wear them and go out on the weekends. Not long after that my dad set up a photography studio under our house. So, then I got into photography and developing my own prints. So, we’ve always been a bit of a creative family, I think that’s where it began. Then later in my 20s, I took a lot of classes, learning how to paint under the guidance of a lot of artists in Melbourne, just learning about techniques and materials. I fell in love with watercolours, then I fell in love with oils, and then later acrylics mainly because they’re quicker to work with and I like to work fast and keep with the flow and not be stopping and starting.

Then later, I guess when I had kids, that’s when I found the time to really paint, which is a strange thing to say. Because when you have kids who don’t have much time, but I painted when they were asleep. And so rather than collapsing on the couch, I would pick up the paint brushes do a bit of painting, and then they’d wake up and I’d be sort of energised from that I thought, you know, wow, I’m really getting something out of this. And the paintings started to build up a little bit. And then I had to find somewhere for them to go. So that’s when I started exhibiting and, the business built from there. And, and it’s, you know, it’s not easy building a business. It’s a lot of hard work. It’s a lot of running around. In recent years, there’s social media, there’s building websites, there’s framing, and then creating a print range, which was exciting. You know, I’m lucky that I can have this as my full-time job, and I’m really blessed that this is what I do every day.