 The artists Cummings cites as influential during this period include Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston, Fred Williams, Russell Drysdale, Sydney Nolan, John Olsen and Jimmy Rose.In 1958 Cummings received the NSW Traveling Art Scholarship and in 1960 the Dyason Bequest, both of which facilitated her travel through Europe for the next decade.In 1961 she studied at Kokoschka’s School of Vision run by Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria before travelling to Florence, Italy.She spent the next 10 years living and studying between Italy and Paris.