While Dowagiac’s Beckwith Park usually has no trouble attracting visitors on a warm and sunny weekend, the creative and lively atmosphere emanating from the downtown greenspace certainly helped turn quite a few heads passing by Saturday.

Several area artists took up residency inside the park that morning and afternoon, where they showcased their respective skills for visitors during the first ever Art in the Park event. Spectators had a chance to not only see the creation of new artwork right before their eyes, but also to pick the brains of the men and women behind the easel.

Art in the Park was the brainchild of Dowagiac’s Candy Grady, a longtime artist and a participant in the 2015 Art Prize competition in Grand Rapids. Grady said she wanted the event to be a sort of coming out party for the Dowagiac art community, which she is hoping to give greater exposure to.

One the inspirations for her mission to help put Grand Old City on the artistic map came during a recent artist mixer she attended in South Bend, where many of the attendees claimed they were not familiar with Dowagiac nor the many creators who call the area home.

Among the artists who participated in Saturday’s event was Dowagiac’s Sharron Ott-Bartemio, who spent the day working on a painting of an angel she had sketched out several days beforehand. Ott, who has been an artist for 45 years, said she has done live art demonstrations many time in the past, and finds them a great match for her art style.

“The process of creating a painting is very interesting and entertaining, but very few people get to experience it,” Ott said. “The finished piece doesn’t entirely speak of the journey the artist took to create it.”

The Dowagiac artist has also taught painting for the past 10 years, and is currently hosting weekly classes in conjunction with the Cass Area Artists at the Cass District Library in Cassopolis. By showcasing the formula that goes into creating a painting — color mixing, layering, etc. — Ott hoped that live demonstrations can inspire people interested in the art world to try their hand at it as well, she said.

One of the other artists at the park Saturday, Buchanan’s Skye Funnell, had a similar outlook.

Funnell, a native of Indiana, has created artwork since he was a child, inspired by his older brother, Corey. He currently owns a studio in Buchanan, Skye is the Limit, where he sells and creates his paintings, sculptures and other art pieces.

On Saturday, Funnell showcased some of his street art pieces, which he created with cans of spray paint. Using stencils he created, as well as repurposed items like coffee cans or plastic wrap, he was able to create different shapes and figures for his paintings, which he could make in a fraction of the time compared to traditional methods.

This style of artwork is quite popular across the country, though very few do it in the local area, Funnell said. Whenever he does live demonstrations at art shows, he  draws crowds of between 20 to 30 onlookers, he said.

Like with Ott, Funnell hoped that his work shows people that it is possible for anyone to jump in and create something with their own hands and imaginations, he said

“If someone has the patience and perseverance, they can do anything,” Funnell said.

Saturday was the first time he visited the Dowagiac area, and Funnell hopes to come out to the city more often to meet more local artists, he said.

For Dowagiac’s Marcy Mitchell, Saturday was the first time she has showcased her artwork to the public. While she spent the day working on creating pieces using oil pastels, she had artwork on display that were made in several different mediums, like acrylic paint.

Mitchell first fell in love with art during her senior year of high school, where she discovered her talent for painting during art class, she said. However, she really began taking her work seriously several years ago, using art as a way to cope emotionally while her mother battled a major illness, Mitchell said.

While she was a bit nervous to show off her work for the first time, she was also excited to meet the other local artists, as well as to talk about her passion with people visiting the park Saturday. Like Grady, Mitchell is hoping that events like Art in the Park can help springboard a resurgence in the arts in Dowagiac, and will create an environment where creative people can easily bounce ideas back and forth and find inspiration for new pieces of art, she said.

“I think the whole community can benefit from events like these,” she said.