sketch artist, watercolourist, bird watcher, collector of books and cricketer

Point to the pictures to see the captions

To contact Don: (03) 9560 6402

Don Townsend was born in Melbourne and has made his home here all his life. As a young man working for A.V Jennings, he did a bit of draughtsmanship, acquiring a technical skill which stood him in good stead later, when he became interested in sketching and painting. For the most part, however, his career was in quantity surveying and administration, and he retired  eventually from a senior managerial position.

Sport was always a keen interest: he played baseball and golf, but cricket is where he made his mark. He was opening batsman for the Prahran Cricket Club and his team won the District Cricket Premiership in 1955. He was an off-spin bowler, but it was as a batsman that he excelled.  Don says he never made a century: always got out in the eighties. However, one day he was batting well and when he passed the magic eighty mark, he felt that elusive century was within his grasp. Frustratingly, the guys at the weather bureau, who love their little joke, saw fit to press the big red button marked "rain" , and that was the end of the match.

It wasn't until the early seventies that Don became interested in painting.  He received some early lessons from David Taylor, who was also a neighbour, and when he attended a CAE lecture given by Colin Johnston, he decided that watercolour was the medium for him.

Shortly after Don took up painting in an enthusiastic way, Lois decided to concentrate on photography instead. "One painter in the family is enough", she said.

In 1976 Don and Lois bought a Kombi Van and they spent Don's long service leave travelling around Australia.  Don decided that on his travels he would make at least one sketch a day: the discipline started on that trip has become a habit and now he never leaves home without his sketchbook.

Don has a plethora of sketchbooks, some doubling as diaries. The sketches are exquisite little works of art in themselves and the collection is a wonderful record of Don's travels and indeed just his day-by-day experiences. I predict that when we are all gone and long forgotten, Don's sketchbooks will be a valuable part of the State Library's  Australiana collection.

Don is particularly fascinated by lighthouses. He makes a point of visiting them all over Australia, and wherever possible, stays overnight in the lighthouse keeper's cottage. No,  he doesn't knock on the door, ask to stay the night and expect Mrs Keeper to cook his breakfast the next morning: these days the cottages have been converted to tourist accommodation and are very popular.  Don has seen and sketched 124 lighthouses around Australia and hopes to add more to his collection in due course.

They travel extensively in Australia, but Don and Lois have also undertaken various trips overseas. One that he remembers with particular fondness, is the house-exchange holiday they enjoyed in Scotland.  They spent seven weeks on the lovely Isle of Seil, near Oban, while their Scottish "landlord", also an artist, and his wife took up residence in Glen Waverley. The two artists each left a painting for the other - an unusual and much prized souvenir of a wonderful holiday.

During their stay Don cruised the lochs for five days on a little steamer affectionately named "Puffer", without Lois, who is not a good sailor. The sketchbook he filled on the trip contains some of the most charming of all his sketches.

Don doesn't like to paint from photographs, preferring to use his own sketches as an aide memoire if he doesn't finish a painting on the spot.  "I don't paint the picture", he says, "I paint the light, the shapes and the colours that I see, and the feelings that they evoke. As I paint, the image emerges." 

It is apparent when looking at Don's work, that he paints from within – his pictures, even the tiniest of the sketches, captures the essence of the scene and imparts a distinct sense of the ambient mood. Copying from a photograph doesn't make it happen for him: he has to capture the moment.  He is a fast painter, preferring to finish a picture in one sitting, if he can. "It is like a hole in one", he says, "sometimes the excitement is there, and it carries the work through until it is complete."

He has experimented with egg tempera, which lends a richer hue to the watercolours. It is not an easy medium in which to work: the egg congeals within a short time. Here Don's swift work methods stand him in good stead.

Don and Lois were married in 1953 and they have two daughters. They have made their home in a quiet tree-lined street in the suburbs, and their own garden is full of native trees and shrubs, which attract the birds that Don loves to watch.  No, he says, he doesn't paint them – that is not his forte.

Besides the Waverley Art Society, Don is also a member of the Watercolour Society of Victoria and a Fellow of the Victorian Artists Society. He enjoys his membership of a small group called "Bottlebrush", consisting of no more than a dozen artists: they meet 3 or 4 times per year to socialise and talk about their art. (I like to imagine "Bottlebrush" meetings as a group of distinguished gentlemen in an elegant restaurant, wearing black tie and sipping a cognac while discussing Vermeer, but I daresay if the truth were known, they're down the pub in their jeans and daggy old jumpers, quaffing beer and talking footy!)

Don has exhibited at numerous exhibitions, and he has won a great many awards and prizes between 1984 and the present day. In 2002 he made WAS history by winning both the members' and public vote for Artist of the Year.  His work is represented in the City of Monash collection, the Fort Queenscliff Museum and in private collections both in Australia and overseas. 

Back to top of page