Artist focus – arthur streeton

Arthur Streeton (1867-1947) was born at Mount Duneed, Victoria. While he studied drawing at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, he was mostly self-taught. He became involved with the Heidelberg School when Tom Roberts invited him to the artist camps in Victoria during the 1880s. Painting en plein air (outside), his landscape paintings captured a unique sense of Australian space, colour and light. Streeton moved to Sydney in the early 1890s where he set up an artist’s camp at Mosman to paint the growing city, busy harbour and beaches, as we can see in his Sydney from the Artist’s Camp, 1894 and Morning Sketch, 1890. During this time, he also went to the Blue Mountains and into rural New South Wales to paint.

In 1897, Streeton travelled to London, where he lived for many years, but often returned to Australia. He was made an official war artist in 1918, and travelled to the Western Front, painting the devastated landscapes of France and Belgium. After WWI, he built a house in the Dandenong Ranges where he continued to paint the landscapes of rural Victoria.

Artmaking activity – en plein air drawing

En plein air means ‘in the open air’ in French. It refers to the practice of working outdoors rather than in the art studio. Using a drawing board to lean on and coloured pencils, we are going to go outside to draw a landscape en plein air, like the Australian Impressionists did.

Guiding ideas

Consider a viewpoint from which to make your work. Make sure you pick a comfortable position to draw in for the duration of the exercise. Think about the colours and the quality of light that is falling on the scene you are going to draw. What colours can you see?

Are there objects in the foreground you want to draw, or do you prefer an open scene? Will you include people in your picture?

How does the sunlight change the colours you see?

Is it a very bright day or overcast? Will this change the mood in the image?

How close you are to an object can change the colours you see. Are the colours in the distance lighter or softer?

Materials

Drawing boards

Coloured pencils

Paper

Erasers

Rugs, chairs or easels

Hats and sunscreen

Image credit: Arthur Streeton, Canal Scene, Venice, 1926, Oil on wood, Bequest of Howard Hinton, 1948

                                        This program was funded by the NSW Government.