Mrs Brett and daughter Pip, who owns the Sonic in Sale Street, decided to donate the proceeds of one of her abstract artworks to Soul Food Design Depot, a cafe and gallery in Narromine, and Mink and Me, a boutique in Coonamble.

The money will be used to provide free coffee to farmers and their families struggling through the drought to give them a break.

Mrs Brett said she was thrilled when it sold.

"We can't bring rain but we can let them know we're thinking of them," she said.

"I went out to Narromine recently [for golf] and it was like playing on concrete, it was so dry."

Mrs Brett started the artwork two days ago and completed it in-store on Saturday morning, immediately selling the work for $3000.

"It was a really easy design to do in the shop - others you really have to think about it and people want to talk to you," she said.

"The quicker I work, the better the painting - if you get stupid with it, it gets all mucky."

Mrs Brett said while some art might illustrate the darker side of drought, she thrived on colour and did not paint with a message in mind.

"Some people do quite brutalist work, they do things with depression and mental health, but I'm not a brutalist painter - I want to make people happy by looking at it," she said.

Her landscapes depict many areas around Orange, including orchards and vineyards, but with a far brighter and more varied colour palette.

"I don't want it to look like a photo," she said.

"I don't think you can learn colour, I think it's part of your make-up, but it's all about brush mileage - the more experience you have painting, the better you become."

She said she and her daughter had raised money before, buying coffee in Walgett, and they saw how much it was appreciated.

"It was a really lovely thing to do," she said.

"Three thousand dollars doesn't get far in hay - until you go out there, you don't know how bad it is."

She turned to at seriously about five years ago after she retired.

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