Palm With Goldfinches Painting

This spring, as has become usual for us, my husband and I made our way in the car, driving to the south of the country, passing through the picturesque Cornish countryside, all the way to Penzance, where we hopped aboard the old faithful Scillonian ferry, sailing the two and a half hour, 25 mile journey across the Atlantic ocean, accompanied by Gannets and seagulls, to arrive once again at the stunning archipelago of the Isles of Scilly with it's fascinating subtropical environment.

Once there, gathering some supplies from the local (and only) supermarket on the way, we wandered up to one of the high point on the islands, Maypole, and reacquainted ourselves with the house that I have known since I was a small child.

The house - a bungalow in actuality - is set on a triangle of land leased from the Duchy of Cornwall which is enveloped in an unruly jungle of sub-tropical plants found throughout the islands, many of which were shipped across by mariners visiting the islands from around the world.

The bungalow has been in my family dating from around about the 1930's when I believe my Grandfather constructed it for his young family. Although it has an inviting entrance via the front door and porch with it's original 1930's patterned glass, we always enter via the back door which takes you directly into the kitchen over a small step that has been worn and polished with the feet of my family over years. The red melamine kitchen that my grandmother used to make her authentic Cornish pasties in has sadly been replaced by a modern, more user friendly one, but the original square red tiles that I remember granny polishing on her hands and knees are still there. The new addition of double doors and a balcony leading out from the kitchen take advantage of the sun trap created by the west side of the house, looking out over what used to be grazing land for the few cattle that my family once farmed alongside their work in the local flower industry.

The kitchen also leads to a sizeable living room, made less spacious by the presence of a huge grand piano heirloom lurking in a corner, but there is still plenty of room for all the usual sitting room furniture plus the lovely red round melamine table, another survivor which once matched the kitchen, where I used to play cards with my Grandmother as a small child. On the walls used to hang a dark and moody painting of a pile of sinister looking fruit, which in dull light looked like a face staring back at you - quite freaky as a child - but thankfully the freshly painted white walls are due to be adorned with something much more bright and cheerful that I have created (see elswhere in my blog). The room has two large windows, one which almost looks out to the sea in the distance if you can catch a glimpse through the jungle and the other looking west to give you an excellent view of the sunset each evening. Opening the windows lets the chatter of wildlife into the room and then tuning the stereo into to Radio Scilly to hear the local news and "bird of the week" completes the Scilly atmosphere.

Leading off the living room is a long corridor with three bedrooms and a games room just off it. Now brightly lit by modern lights and night lights, this was also once a source of trepidation for me as a small child in what seemed like an intimidating chasm between my bedroom and the bathroom whenever a night-time trip to the loo was required! Even as an adult I still think it wise to treat it with respect...!

If you brave the corridor and turn right into the games room, you gain access to a second (original) balcony which overlooks my grandad's garden - a garden that I think he planted from scratch around the same time that he built the house. Directly in front of you looking out from the balcony is what is now a huge palm tree among others that he planted in his garden, which multiple family members have posed next to for photographs over the years. It will not then surprise you to learn that the name of the house is fittingly, "The Palms"!

Palm Tree Posers!

As you can see from these photo's one palm tree sits directly in the centre of the lawn, a position which dominates the garden and creates a focal point for people and wildlife alike. The tree is usually alive with groups of sparrows bouncing about its fronds, but sometimes they give way to other birds - doves, starlings or even goldfinches, offering an amazingly close encounter with birds that are usually more rarely observed.

For all these reasons this palm tree has become iconic for me and a bit of a muse - I love it's chunky body, the choppy angles created by it's leaves, the pattern on the trunk created by it's shed branches and the birds that make it their home.

In it's honour, it frequently pops up as a subject in my painting. Repeating and revisiting the image offers many possibility for variety, working alongside familiarity, all of which reinforce the iconography of the subject.

See the video below for a quick glimpse of work as it progressed on this painting.