Oil on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the back.

This oil painting is of the banksias that line the paths and tracks that go down to the beach at Brunswick Heads. I love all banksias, but these are lovely to draw so I have quite a number of etchings that feature them. So I decided to paint them as well. I have used the blue of the sky as a background, although at Brunswick, they are part of the dense undergrowth and almost never look like this against the sky in this area. I love them because of the sculptural quality and the delicate browns and reds that they have if you look closely. The banksia is one of our most resilient natives, and reseed well after bushfires, as the heat opens the “eyes” and the seeds can then fall and germinate. When I was young, my favourite book was May Gibbs “Snugglepot and Cuddlepie”, which featured the big bad Banksia Men. Very scarey, especially if you’d never seen a real Banksia, like me. This is still one of my favourite books and even today I will reread it when I feel like it. These particular banksias are not the ones in the book, which are a different variety, and these ones are not very scarey at all. If you’ve never read “Snugglepot and Cuddlepie”, I would recommend that you do – its the best Australian children’s story that I know.