Twelve artists have reached the finals of The Weekend Sun Emerging Artist awards in this year's Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival competition.

Ten women and two men have been selected to now participate in a series of development workshops with artist Rob McGregor, leading up to the highly-anticipated festival in November. The artists use mainly oil or acrylic paints, but some also used mixed media, pastels, water colour and pencil.

The Weekend Sun Emerging Artists project is a wonderful opportunity for developing artists to grow confidence and build on their existing skills through attending workshops with a mentoring artist.

Would-be artists were invited to submit a bio and photos showing examples of their work to the festival's artist committee. From this, finalists are selected.

'I read through the finalists' bios and started to make notes so when I made up a programme, it's a result of looking at examples of their work as well as their individual profiles,” says Rob.

His tailored workshops are enabling participants to benefit not only from his wealth of knowledge and artistic expertise but to also benefit from each other's suggestions and ideas.

Rob says that the artists not only have him tutoring them but they have other people's work from the group to look at 'so they don't just receive my one-sided view, but also other people's input as well”.

He says it's important during this collaborative supportive process that people make their own decision about their work.

The artists chosen come to the workshops which are held at the Tauranga Racecourse with easels, paints, canvas and painting tools, with Rob covering important aspects of composition, perspective, focal points, and artistic licence.

The Weekend Sun Emerging Artist Award was created to encourage new artists to develop their expertise, or to prompt existing artists to take their work to the next level.

The emerging artist winner will receive a prize and entry as a trail artist into the 2024 festival. Runners-up will also be considered as trail artists for 2024. All finalists will have work on display at Bloom in the Bay at Tauranga Racecourse during the festival.

The Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival is on from November 17-20. For ticket sales and more information, visit: www.gardenandartfestival.co.nz