Dappled sunlight streams into the porch of Joyce Coyne’s Auburn home.

The four women ensconced there note the shifting shadows as a light breeze filters through the tree outside the many sparkling windows.

Laboring over palettes and easels, three of the women quietly work, applying paint to canvases in layers.

Occasionally, the solitude is punctuated by rustling tracing paper as Melanie Ness works on her proportions.

The Monday Art Circle began almost accidentally over a decade ago — Sandy Norton first asked Coyne if she wanted get together and paint. And then they asked Ness. Coyne wanted to ask Marj DiRenzo, and then the group met Claire Metivier.

And so Monday Art Circle was born.

“There are times when we don’t want to paint, and we just talk,” said Ness with a laugh. “It’s like a support group. We give each other a lot of constructive criticism.”

The four — Marj DiRenzo passed away this summer — regularly meet on Mondays at each others’ homes, and then go out for lunch in the summer months.

Over art, the women, all from Auburn except Metivier who is from Lewiston, have formed a lasting friendship and bond. They take field trips together to the Portland Museum of Art or other places. They take classes together and go to social outings.

They also do art shows together, like their current display at the Auburn Public Library.

And then there are “retreat days” when the four travel out of Ness’ family camp and teach each other different techniques.

Ness taught the group perspective, DiRenzo taught them silhouette cutting, Norton taught them Chinese brush stokes, just to name a few.

Each has a distinct artistic style.

“Melanie is our museum quality still-lifer. Joyce does watercolors with gardens and homes. She’s very soft and likes to be outside,” Norton said. “I just like to do things that interest me.”

“She’s a medieval hippie,” Coyne said.

“Our free spirit,” Ness added.

After a quick laugh, Norton said, “Claire likes to do people.”

“I like to do things that strike me. It has to have some sort of sign or meaning,” Metivier said.

All the women remember creating art as children, but their careers as artists started in different ways.

Ness was an art major in college, but did not work on it seriously until after she turned 35 and her daughter was 5.

“I have painted my whole life, even as a child,” Ness said.

Coyne has been working as an artist for the past 25 years, doing art shows and commission work. She has also moved into doing murals. But as a child, she didn’t recognize her talent.

“In high school, I didn’t take the art classes because I thought I wasn’t going to be good enough,” Coyne said.

Norton had great aspirations when she took up painting.

“I always said when I was in my 40s, I was going to write the great American novel and paint. Then I was almost out of my 40s and I decided to take painting classes,” Norton said. “I still don’t write.”

Metivier was also a late bloomer in the art world.

“I started in my 50s. I had always wanted to do it since I was a little girl, but life just happened,” she said.

It wasn’t until she visited a gallery with a friend that she was inspired to take classes.

Now, the four women frequently have art shows and sell their work in sidewalk art sales, and local galleries.

Coyne is preparing for the Plein Air! exhibit at Gallery 5 in Lewiston, and Metievier is getting ready for the same gallery’s winter showing, the Whiteout exhibit.

Ness, along with Norton and Coyne, will be featured at Central Maine Medical Center on Nov. 6 for one day only.

And as they prepare, they look to members of the Monday Art Circle for support and a little bit of critique.

“When I’m working toward a show or a commission and I don’t know when to stop,” Coyne said, “it’s having that other set of eyes to tell me to stop.”

After a long pause, she adds, “Or to keep going.”