G’Day,

When I see the brilliant yellow flowers of the Wattles in our garden I’m reminded of a verse I learned as a small child “When I wake up in the morning I open my window and I sing, and I sing and I sing”. This is how the Wattles make me feel!

This photo is of one Wattle in our garden – we have a few species.  If anyone knows the name of this one please let me know.

The Wattle has been here for 34 – 37 million years!  The Golden Wattle is Australia’s national floral emblem, symbolizing this great southern land.

I just had to paint the flowers and it made sense to me to capture the musical notes they reminded me of in more ways than one.  I decided to compose my painting around musical notation.  You may see the lines of the stave; a bass clef; a neutral clef and various notes and breaks.

The Wattle Song

It is 1000 by 750 cm in size and painted in the same palette of acrylic paints as the Pincushion Hakea Laurina and others, as they were designed to be hung in the same location.  This painting taught me to be careful when choosing colours to paint shadows on yellow objects – it is too easy to end up with dull, dirty looking ones. After trying the complement of yellow (violet) I found a touch of Cadmium Red Light for warm shadows and a touch of Phthalo Green or Blue for cool shadows worked better.

There are few flowers around us in the Perth Hills towards the end of a long, hot summer and I’m looking forward to the abundance that winter and spring bring.  Until then I’ll enjoy what each season brings.

Next time will bring musings about my ‘Kanga Anga’ painting.

Hooroo,
🙂
Helen