Acrylic on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

This artwork comes with an external frame

Balga Feeding Rainbows 2 is the second in this series celebrating the beauty of our unique flora and fauna. The Balga plant is a favourite of mine. I admire the fountain shape of its leaves and the benefits the plant brings to the natural environment. The Indigenous people discovered many riches that included food and medicine.

They are some interesting web pages explaining the many uses for the Balga. I liked one page that told of Indigenous people using the leaf blade as a knife for cutting through meat. And I can agree, as I have had a few knife cuts from trimming the leaves.

I have a backyard full of these plants that produce a large spiked flower around January. This annual flowering attracts another favourite of mine - the cheeky Rainbow Lorikeet.

The colour palette offered by the birds’ plumage is a delight to the eyes. It seems mother nature threw the idea of camouflage out the window when it came to the dress code of this species. It wasn’t until I started to paint the background for this series that I started to appreciate how well the bird blends into the vivid colours of our Australian sky and native plants.