Brushes in Bunkers

Posted on November 7, 2025 By Chris Osborne Adventures

Art Workshops at Possum Park

Over the past few years, I have really enjoyed teaching art workshops as part of my exhibitions in the rural communities. These workshops have not only provided a creative outlet for participants but have also fostered a sense of camaraderie among artists of all skill levels. I didn’t realize how important they would be in building the self-taught artists’ confidence they need to grow and learn new skills. By sharing techniques, offering constructive feedback, and encouraging experimentation, I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformative power of art education. Each session has reinforced my belief in the importance of nurturing creativity and has opened up new opportunities for these talented individuals to express themselves and pursue their artistic dreams.

I have created a series of art workshops called “Brushes in Bunkers” ranging from complete beginners to more advanced artists. They will be held in an old 60ft WWII underground bunker which remains cool most of the year round. These include black & white workshops in pen & ink, and watercolour and ink workshops. If you want to learn more techniques, then there are perspective workshops, trees & stumps. Other workshops under development are backgrounds and learning about composition and multi day workshops in Acrylic painting.

Renovations

Before any of this was possible, we had to do a little maintenance and fix a few problems to make this possible, ensuring that everything was in optimal condition. This included not only routine checks and minor repairs but also addressing some unexpected issues that arose during our initial assessments.

The toilet block roof was totally blocked with grass growing out of the gutters. The skylights had to be re sealed which was not fun on a 38deg day. Lets just say the roof was a little hot and so was my rear end.

Since the toilet block was locked up for over 4yrs and also had a leaking roof there was a little bit of a mess to clean up.

As you can see from the original mess on the left to a cleaned floor on the right. In addition to cleaning the floor there was the toilets, walls, doors and ceilings. In all it took just over 4hrs to clean both male and female sides. Then another few hours the next day fixing the flushing mechanisms.

Once we turned the water back onto the far side of Possum Park we discovered a few leaks. Also some air relief valves that needed fixing outside of bunkers 10 & 11.

All the garden watering systems also had to be fixed, so we can get the gardens looking wonderful once more and bring them back to their former glory of the late 90s. I have been busy planting a few garden succulents in areas that don’t receive much rain and removing the odd tree that was causing problems with the gutters.

I conducted a test run just to make sure the lighting was adequate to paint for several hours at a time and the temperature would be fine. The temperature was just over 22deg inside the bunker and almost 38deg outside, which was a significant difference and nice and pleasant to work in.

Remember the extensive effort put into developing and testing course content to ensure each workshop is valuable for skill enhancement. That’s lots of late nights and the best ideas seem to pop into my head at 3am.

Also, lots of trips to the library to print out content because they have much better printers and it’s always good to have a chat with people.

One of the best parts of creating course content is the field trips. The train line at the bottom of Possum Park was a good example of two point perspective. And a good opportunity to do some bird watching.

Just a bit further down the road is the old Walsh’s cottages that are used for quick sketching and watercolour workshops. I have also used multiple photos from my overseas trips. So the course content isn’t just Australian.