Field Naturalists and Treasure Seekers

One of my favourite paintings for Silent Sentinel might be the scene of three children playing in the creek. It evokes nostalgic childhood memories of carefree days and the freedom to explore. Even in suburban Melbourne we roamed along the railway embankments, vacant blocks and wasteland beside the freeway.

In the double page spreads throughout the book, the viewer stands with their back to Findon Creek, looking towards the trees lining Darebin Creek in the distance at the foot of the Epping Hills. The single page images show different angles, in which the nearby creek is visible. “Treasure Seekers” is based on photos I took standing on the bridge over Findon Creek at Harvest Home Road, looking north.

Here the creek meanders through a narrow riparian zone where native vegetation mingles with introduced weeds. A redgum tree (though not my “model”) and the bluestone cottage which features in the book can be seen near the bridge. On a clear day the distant ridge of Mt Disappointment can be seen between the buildings, but where there were still paddocks only a few years ago, rows of new houses now line the banks of the creek.

Trying to envisage what the area may have been like in days gone by I found myself looking at the works of some of my favourite artists- the Australian Impressioninsts. As well as capturing the light and colour of letting moments in time, many of the paintings by the Heidelberg school tell stories of moments in the life of people. Among these artists was Jane Sutherland who was “one of the leading female professional artists in Melbourne during the late nineteeth century. Reflecting her love of the Australian bush, she was member of The Field Naturalists Club of Victora, which was formed in 1880 for the purpose of exploring natural history through excursions into the bush.” (NGV) Had her excursions included the wooded grasslands and farms to the north? Had she ever set up her easel under one of the local redgums to paint a rural scene en plein air?

Among Sutherland’s works is a well known painting called “Field Naturalists”, which reminds me of photos of my own children catching fish and water bugs at local wetlands. I toyed with the idea of including the artist and her field easel in one of my illustrations, creating the composition below as a potential reference.

For each of my paintings I created a similar collage from many different photos, which I then used as the reference for the final painting. In this case I decided including an actual historical person would have been too specific for the purposes of my book, so I decided to use my own children (a few years ago!) as models and “Field Naturalists” as inspiration.

I gave my work the title “Treasure seekers” and imagined that children living beside the creek in the 1890s would have been as fascinated by the possibilities as I was eight decades later! Would a yabby take the bait today? What was the strange water creature caught found in the net?  Was the sun glinting off specks of mica, or “fool’s gold” among the sand or was it possible that it was real gold this time?

And surely, though times have changed and most parents wouldn’t dream of letting their children wade barefoot and unsupervised in a local waterway – surely they are still drawn by the sense of adventure of a creek waiting to be explored? I hope so!