Golden Penda is Part Six of my Field Notes 30 × 30cm Collection.
Golden Penda is a common Brisbane Street Tree. When we were looking to buy a house in 4017, they were all blossoming with a stunning display of lemon yellow blossom. So they will always remind me of when we found our Brighton home
I had painted them in still life set-ups before, and they are another example of wacky Australian Flora. The colour, the petals, the crazy mass of stamen. I made many drawings of them. The more I drew them, the more I looked, the more I saw. They are truly wondrous flowers. The specimens came from the tree on the other side of our street.
Field Notes is divided into ten parts, each exploring a plant or tree I have encountered in my Brighton, 4017 neighbourhood. I observed the specimens on my daily dog walks, bringing a sample back to the studio to make drawings and paintings from it.
I worked on this collection from January to October 2026, so the paintings also record the changing seasons and the flora of my new neighbourhood as the year unfolded.
Each part consists of five paintings. Two were painted directly from life in natural light in my studio. These are titled Tabletop and Vessel. The other three paintings were developed from my drawings and worked as a triptych, exploring abstraction and the act of looking.
The final two parts of the collection developed a little differently, with two paintings in each. By this point I was ready to move on from the 30 × 30cm format and began working on my first 90 × 90cm paintings. Sometimes a collection tells you when it is time to change direction.
There are 44 paintings in the complete collection, each measuring 30 × 30cm and painted in acrylic on ply. The ply panels are cradled in meranti.
I chose the 30 × 30cm format because it is the size of my sketchbook, so it felt like a natural scale for this project. I also liked the connection to the idea of a foot - these paintings began with looking, walking and noticing what was around me on foot.
Golden Penda is Part Six of my Field Notes 30 × 30cm Collection.
Golden Penda is a common Brisbane Street Tree. When we were looking to buy a house in 4017, they were all blossoming with a stunning display of lemon yellow blossom. So they will always remind me of when we found our Brighton home
I had painted them in still life set-ups before, and they are another example of wacky Australian Flora. The colour, the petals, the crazy mass of stamen. I made many drawings of them. The more I drew them, the more I looked, the more I saw. They are truly wondrous flowers. The specimens came from the tree on the other side of our street.
Field Notes is divided into ten parts, each exploring a plant or tree I have encountered in my Brighton, 4017 neighbourhood. I observed the specimens on my daily dog walks, bringing a sample back to the studio to make drawings and paintings from it.
I worked on this collection from January to October 2026, so the paintings also record the changing seasons and the flora of my new neighbourhood as the year unfolded.
Each part consists of five paintings. Two were painted directly from life in natural light in my studio. These are titled Tabletop and Vessel. The other three paintings were developed from my drawings and worked as a triptych, exploring abstraction and the act of looking.
The final two parts of the collection developed a little differently, with two paintings in each. By this point I was ready to move on from the 30 × 30cm format and began working on my first 90 × 90cm paintings. Sometimes a collection tells you when it is time to change direction.
There are 44 paintings in the complete collection, each measuring 30 × 30cm and painted in acrylic on ply. The ply panels are cradled in meranti.
I chose the 30 × 30cm format because it is the size of my sketchbook, so it felt like a natural scale for this project. I also liked the connection to the idea of a foot - these paintings began with looking, walking and noticing what was around me on foot.
