WHEN Wendy Macklin likens herself to untutored American folk artist Grandma Moses, (“sort of”, she says) she is surely being a little disingenuous.

For the well-known Canberra junior school music specialist, composer, writer and, just recently, painter was never completely ignorant of the painterly arts.

“My mother was an artist, you know – landscapes, watercolours, she taught me a lot,” Wendy says, though in retrospect, much of her mum’s style seems “a bit wishy washy”.

But life got in the way and, as she says: “It’s hard to be a painter when you’ve got kids and teenagers around.”

Wendy’s still teaching a bit, but when she became semi-retired and she and her husband, “CityNews” columnist and author Robert, found they were spending more time in their alternative house at Tuross Head on the south coast, Wendy looked out the window to Coila Beach, saw the vision splendid of kite flying, cricketing and all the things ordinary people did – she said to herself: “I think I’ll try a little beach picture.”

She quickly found that she loved the colours of the beach and went on to capture what she calls “one of the great joys of an Australian childhood, the beach holiday”.

Now, with a lovely spot upstairs set out with her painting equipment and 44 works ready for exhibiting, Wendy says: “I’m pleased with my style now, it’s nothing like anybody else’s, it’s a quirky style with people and dogs.”

She soon talked the local coffee shop in Tuross into hanging few “10 x 12” paintings (25.4 x 30.4 cm) and found that her images of happy kids, happy grown ups and happy dogs went down well.

When family friends Weilian and Roger Carter, owners of Humble House Gallery in Fyshwick, popped around for dinner, Wendy gave them a Christmas calendar with one of her paintings on it and showed them some of her other work. To her astonishment, the prompt response was: “We’ve got a gallery, do you want an exhibition?”

“I was kind of discombobulated,” Wendy says, but she nonetheless set to work to prepare for her first solo exhibition.

It’s fairly daunting. The gallery is usually home to exquisite antique Chinese furniture, pottery and artworks, Wendy says. But looking on the bright side she guesses: “This winter their gallery will be filled with summer fun!”

“South Coast Summer” by Wendy Macklin, at Humble House Gallery, 93 Wollongong Street, Fyshwick, June 19 to July 17.