A creative road trip across home
Inspired by Australia. Created in Australia. Celebrated at Art Shed.
This August, we're following the colours that feel like home along red dirt roads, past weathered sheds and gum trees, all the way to salt-washed mornings and that almost-impossible blue at the coast. Bring a sketchbook. We'll bring the paint.
First stop · cattle country
There's a particular kind of beauty out here: rusty gates, working dogs, sun-warmed timber and the last streak of pink behind a gum tree. A little rough around the edges. Full of character. Exactly right.
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Field note · somewhere after the servo
The ochre softens into sand. Eucalypt greens give way to coastal scrub. A kookaburra calls from the fence line, then a flash of galah pink disappears over the road.
You can almost smell the salt from here.
Next stop · the coast
Early swims and long weekends. Sun-bleached beach shacks, shell-pink skies and the kind of turquoise that never looks real until you're standing right in front of it.
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Straight from the paint tube
Not vague "earthy tones". Not "ocean-inspired blue". These colours carry the names of the real things: ghost gums, galahs, banksias, wattle and that enormous Australian sky.
Matisse also makes paints in Australian Sap Green, Olive Green, Red Violet, Yellow Green and Leaf Green. Boom's local line-up includes Kookaburra Brown, Ghost Gum Grey and Bungarra Brown. Art Spectrum brings the landscape together in its Australian Landscape Colours watercolour box set and Australian Colours pastel pad. Can't choose? Check out Matisse's colour of Australia sets.
New in · just landed for Aussie August
That kookaburra laugh. That koala cuddle. Now small enough to clip on. Smyle Designs' new range has just landed for Aussie August: pins and earrings cut from recycled acrylic and hand-finished in Brisbane. Every piece is Australian made, and every purchase chips in for WWF Australia.
From Sarsha's notebook
Stories, artists and practical how-tos for seeing and mixing the colours around Australia.
The history behind our Australian-owned and Australian-made brands, plus the Aussie-named colours in their ranges.
Read the storyA step-by-step guide to those twisting trunks, silvery leaves and unmistakably Australian shapes.
Meet three Australian artists and see the places, stories and colours that shape their work.
Mix the exact red of an outback dirt road and the turquoise blue of the Whitsundays.
Made here, owned here
Some are family-owned. Some have been mixing, bottling and building their ranges here for decades. Here's who's who — clearly labelled, because the details matter.
Family owned, Brisbane, since 2002. Manufactured overseas.
Dortimer family, since 1952. Manufactured overseas.
Rhodes, NSW, since the 1960s.
NSW; patented locally.
Chroma, NSW.
Melbourne, since the early 1960s. Note - some paper products are made overseas. All paint is made in Australia.
Hand-bottled in Mandurah, WA.
Sydney pottery and clay supplier; 40 years.
Adhesives made in Riverstone, NSW, since 1970.
"Australian-made" classifications on this page reflect each brand's own claims supplied to Art Shed and have not been checked against the official Australian Made Campaign licence register. No Australian Made certification mark is used or implied.
Your place on the map
The beach track you know by heart. The gum outside the kitchen window. The old shed, the city light, the magpie who supervises every sketch. Share the Australian place you keep coming back to — and what you've made from it.
Pack the creative kit
Every colour on this page starts with a tube, pot or bottle made right here. Shop the Australian-made range and bring some of it home.
Shop Australian-madeSign up to receive $5 off shipping
Art Shed
Australia's Best Art & Crafts Supplier based in South East Melbourne
