This is one of the 28 inch square paintings I sold recently to someone living up in Townsville, Australia. I would have to say that it is one of my favourite paintings. I think I wouldn’t have been all that upset if it HADN’T sold. I would happily have hung this on my own wall!
I was inspired by a regular school scene. Almost every day I do school pick up and drop off of my children who started formal schooling this year. Where we park the car, we always get to see this modest-sized old Queenslander house which is located right next to their school. I believe a little old lady with a bun and glasses lives in it and she sometimes waves to the school children passing her home. One day, I looked closer at her garden and realised that she had a thriving pineapple patch in her front yard. A little thought popped up in my head! Maybe she’s a lover of pineapples and every time she finishes a fruit, she throws the top into her front yard. And over the decades, she’s grown herself a little plantation!
She also has a little vegetable patch with a few citrus trees, and many, many self-seeding cherry tomato plants in her BACK yard, which backs onto the school junior school grounds. Around the perimeter of her home, she has planted many native plants like grevillias. The two big round rain water tanks are stand out features of her vegetable patch.
As with most of suburban Brisbane, there are sulphur-crested cockatoos and magpies everywhere, so I thought I’d capture them in the painting as well. And of course, we are so lucky to have our beautiful blue Queensland skies and bright yellow sunshine.
There’s been a lot of urban re-development going on in our neck of the woods. There are many acreages with people owning a few animals such as horses, cows and goats. Many developers are buying up these large properties and subdividing them into residential lots. I’m a bit concerned that when this elderly lady goes to glory, her little lot will probably disappear as well, so I thought I’d dedicate this painting to her, her life and her home, as a little piece of Australiana folk art.
