Designed around the details

Max Hamilton: An award-winning illustrator

You don’t become a CBCA and Whitley award-winner by accident. You do so by spending years devoted to your work, noticing every little detail in your subjects… the wistfulness in the eyes of a possum, the subtly changing tones of the Australian landscape, a black cockatoo’s yellow edged feathers. You do it by then bringing these details to life on the page with patient precision and an instinct for creating wonder.

This is work that demands a space that matches it. Quiet. Focused. Private. And filled with the right kind of light.

For Max, that space didn’t exist for a long time. And when she looked at gaining it, the obvious solution wasn’t the right one.

“We were pricing up renovating our house to create more room and a more private workspace,” she tells us. “But the quotes to renovate were way out of our budget”.

Why a garden studio beats an extension

With a traditional extension out of the question, she began exploring alternative options. Garden buildings that could deliver what a conventional renovation couldn’t: extra space at a cost that made sense.

“We started looking into more affordable options for garden studios,” Max explains.

That’s when she found Greenspan. But this wasn’t something that happened by chance.

“A friend also highly recommended Greenspan,” she tells us.

That friend is fellow creative, Cath Derksema, the talented textile artist behind ‘The Happenstore’. When Cath needed the security of permanent business premises after years of uncertainty in Sydney’s unpredictable commercial rental market, she too turned to Greenspan. Her beautiful Melwood Workshed had become something of an icon in Sydney’s artist circle.

Cath’s story is also worth reading – you can find it here.

When every detail can be exactly right

Any personal recommendation carries weight, but what sealed the deal for Max was all in the details.

“We chose Greenspan mainly because of the ability to customise the window and door sizes,” she tells us.

As an illustrator whose entire practice depends on light – and the right kind – the ability to specify where windows sit, how large they are, and how the building is oriented wasn’t just a finishing touch. It was the entire design brief.

A standard, off-the-shelf alternative simply wouldn’t have delivered what Max needed. But with Greenspan, she was able to incorporate custom windows and position them to capture the right kind of light for her detailed work. Plus, for a meticulous creative, the design aesthetic is as important as the practicalities… and when every feature could be personalised to suit, Max knew it would look as good as it performed.

It wasn’t only the extensive customisation that convinced her, though.

“The quality looked better than other competitors,” she confirms.

Designing a studio from the ground up

Bringing this all together was a genuinely collaborative process right from the start.

“I drew up a plan of what I wanted, looked through the existing Greenspan buildings in the online gallery to check what was achievable, and then we met with a designer at Greenspan who helped us finalise and draw up our design,” Max recalls.

The ability to bring a firm vision to buildable reality through a personalised design process meant Max got exactly what she wanted from her home studio. And it was straightforward too, “The process was very easy in designing the studio along with the Greenspan team,” she confirms.

Her base design was a Melwood Workshed 3263. The two prominent elevations were upgraded to pre-primed weatherboard cladding, before attention turned to the most essential feature of all – light. Every opening has been placed with purpose to create the perfect conditions for detailed illustrative work. Max opted for aluminium full glass double doors to the front elevation. These are flanked by a custom 1200 x 1200 double-hung window on each side, while another sits in the gable end to effectively create a corner of glass.

“It’s good for me painting to have the south-facing light because that’s a consistent light,” Max explains.

For artists, the right light isn’t a preference. It’s a requirement. South-facing light is diffused and consistent throughout the day with no harsh directional shifts and no glare – ideal conditions for detailed watercolour work, where colour accuracy is everything.

An exterior to match the house, the pool, and the garden

Set next to the pool at the end of her Southern Sydney garden, Max’s Melwood shelters under towering palms and is surrounded by lush tropical gardens. It had to sit well in a space that was already beautiful. And it does.

The cladding has been painted in “Ironstone” – the same colour as the house, creating an intentional connection between the two structures.

In contrast, the crisp white frames of the doors and windows pop against their darker background, highlighting the unique size and shape of this customised choice. Selecting Colorbond® roofing in “Shale Grey” was the perfect choice to position the Melwood as a deliberate landscaping choice, mirroring the adjacent pool coping, and the path of stepping stones that leads to the entrance.

An interior as detailed as the work within it

Inside is just as considered, with every detail a deliberate choice.

An all-white palette – from the tongue and groove lined walls, to the high-pitched ceiling, to the furniture – offers a blank canvas for the splashes of colour that represent Max’s work.

Set underneath the corner of south-facing windows is her workstation – positioned to catch consistent light from every angle throughout the day. A rainbow of watercolours, pencils, pots and paintbrushes sit neatly arranged on the desk, ready to work when Max is. Adjacent is a wall of storage and shelving, with colour-coordinated copies of her books proudly displayed alongside her favourite children’s authors’ titles.

Then there are the little details… of course.

Splashes of coastal colour from ocean-themed décor pieces. A rattan lamp that mimics the colour of the floor. A vintage-style record player and a soft grey sofa. Details that make her studio a place to enjoy spending the day, rather than simply getting work done.

At the far end, a second workspace serves a quieter purpose.

“My partner also works from home two days a week and is sometimes on call, so it’s great to have this space away from the kids’ bedrooms, etc., when he needs to make calls during the night,” Max tells us. This end of the build is his. Two professional lives in one well-considered workspace.

Teddy, the Golden Retriever, has claimed his spot too, joining Max while she works.

The studio that was better than a renovation

The renovation quotes might have been out of reach, but the alternative turned out to be a far better solution.

A studio designed around the details. Windows chosen for the light they let in. Cladding selected to mirror that of the house; colour choices made for the same reason.

And for Max, separating work and home was a better answer altogether.

“Having this designated space, away from the rest of the house, is wonderful – I have found I am much more focused and productive now.”

You can take a closer look at Max Hamilton’s work on her website or over at her Instagram page

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Max’s illustration studio and home office is a Melwood Workshed 3263 measuring 3.2m x 6.3m.

It features pre-primed weatherboard cladding to the two prominently visible elevations, with board and batten cladding to the other two. Max further personalised the design with aluminium full glass double doors and three custom double hung windows in “White”. A further sliding window offers cross-ventilation with privacy. Colorbond® roofing is in “Shale Grey”.

All measurements are approximate.

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