[3] She took drawing classes at a suburban ladies' college, and was recommended by her teacher to join the National Gallery School, where she studied for two years under Frederick McCubbin.

[2] She started her career painting portraits but her love of nature and a move to Warrandyte prompted a concentration on landscape,[2] as reported of her 1929 exhibition at the Melbourne Athenaeum in The Cairns Post;Miss Jo Sweatman, the Melbourne artist, is one who delights to paint the beauties of nature as she finds them on a bush track.

Warrandyte, a little township on thc Yarra, has for some time been the happy hunting ground of artists, for it has many a beauty spot, and here Miss Sweatman has gone for some of her best bush scenes.

[6] She helped establish annual art exhibitions with the Warrandyte Women's Auxiliary Association, serving on a committee of resident artists as secretary.

[7] Sweatman was a founding member of the group, Twenty Melbourne Painters Society, that was formed by students and followers of Australian Tonalist Max Meldrum.