Presented alongside the touring Archibald Prize 2020 is the local Young Archies competition, with over 30 works from talented young artists in our community.

Each portrait is of someone special to the artist and Estelle and Amelia White, who both have entries in the 5-8 years category, chose to portray their brother Lewis.

"He always inspires me to do great stuff and he makes me feel good about myself and so I found a good picture that I remembered when he went to the beach with us and he made me feel brave," said eight-year-old Amelia.

In her work, titled 'The Brave One', Amelia used watercolours, acrylic paints and sand from the beach to capture the setting's colour and texture.

"I thought I was going to do watercolours but the beach is very bright and sunny and the water colours would look not really good on the paper so I thought of acrylics. I started doing a couple of pictures with water colours and crayons and pencils and then I choose which one looked better."

This is Amelia's first portrait and for her next work will return to her preferred subject.

"I usually like doing animals, they're my favourite things to draw."

Eleven-year-old Eva Pham decided to paint a portrait of her mother Tram in the style of Impressionists who used a single colour for their palette.

"I wanted to show my Mum because she's been quite special in my life."

Having started making art in Kindergarten, Eva found the process of painting and artmaking rewarding.

"It is always inspiring me to create something new and it brightens up my day when I even try to do one art piece. When I look back at it I feel proud of all the things that I've accomplished."

Eva's current teacher encouraged her to apply and suggested using oil paints.

"She said that you can never make a mistake with it since you could always just go over it, and I thought that was kind of amazing. Seeing how textural it can be and what amazing things you can make with it, I guess I took a liking to it."

Using shades of burgundy and maroon, Eva's work, named 'My Inspiration', has illuminated her mother's personality, topped off with a crown.

"She's the queen of the house. I've always looked up to her as some kind of queen so I thought, why not add a crown?"

What's next for Eva?

"I hope to continue making more art that brings my family and everyone else smiles on their faces. I don't mind the hardships because it can always lead to something good."