Why I Paint Flowers: An Australian Botanical Artist's Story

There's something about flowers that has always pulled me in.

Not just any flowers. Australian flowers. The ones that grow here, that belong to this landscape, that look like nothing else on earth.

From the very beginning of my creative life — through painting, collage, printmaking, mosaics, fabric work — the subject was always the same. Waratahs. Banksias. Gum blossoms. Kangaroo paw. Grevilleas. And proteas, always proteas. I've been drawing and painting them since I was young and I still find something new in them every time I look.

That's not something I decided. It's just always been true.

The Flowers That Keep Stopping Me

As an Australian botanical artist, I paint these flowers again and again — not because I've run out of ideas, but because each time I look I discover something new.

I've always been drawn to the bold beauty of Australian native flora. There's a richness and variety in the natural world here that fuels my imagination in a way that nothing else does. The sculptural drama of a waratah. The wildness of a banksia. The way a kangaroo paw holds its colour. The delicate structure of a gum blossom.

And then there are proteas.

I have a particular love of proteas that I can't fully explain — except to say that the architecture of them stops me every time. The layers. The way they're simultaneously bold and intricate. The strength of them. I've painted them hundreds of times and I'm still not done.

A fun fact worth knowing: waratahs, banksias, grevilleas and hakeas — all those flowers we think of as distinctly Australian — are actually part of the same ancient plant family as proteas. It's called the Proteaceae, one of the oldest flowering plant families on earth. Australia has hundreds of species within it. So when I paint what I call Australian natives alongside proteas, I'm painting within the same botanical family. The connection between them is real and it runs deep.

Why I Never Stopped

I got back into painting seriously in the mid-nineties, doing art and craft with my children and volunteering once a week teaching art at their school. That kept me connected to the joy of just making — without overthinking it.

Art had always been a deep love. But for a long time I never did anything professional with it. I just kept painting because I couldn't not.

Through everything — raising children, studying textile design in 2011, learning surface pattern and print — the flowers were always there. The medium changed. The subject never did.

When I began designing professionally, I didn't have to think twice about what I'd paint. It was always going to be botanical. My art is my way of connecting to nature, memory, and meaning — and sharing that connection through colour and composition.

Whether it's a protea bursting with detail, the layered petals of a banksia bloom, or the pure drama of a waratah, every flower I paint carries a feeling. Sometimes strength. Sometimes quiet joy. Sometimes both at once.

What Botanical Art Does

After years of painting Australian native flowers, I'm still as captivated as I was at the beginning.

That's what botanical art does — it keeps nature in your daily life, even when you're indoors, even when the season has passed. A painting of a waratah on your wall is a small daily reminder that beauty is real and it's worth paying attention to.

I believe flowers have the power to brighten a space, lift your mood, and bring something genuine into the everyday. That's why I paint them. And that's why I'll never stop.

🌿 Explore the Flowers Behind the Art

Explore the Flowers Behind the Art

If you'd like to understand more about where a specific collection came from and why I painted it the way I did, I've written about that too.

The Flowers of Oz collection — my most loved body of work — started in 2017 as something purely personal. No commercial intention. Just painting freely to see if my style could hold its own. Read the full story here.

You can also explore the work across these collections:

→ Flowers of Oz Collection — bold Australian native flower art, painted by hand
→ Protea Magnifica Collection — dramatic protea art with jewel-tone depth
→ Garden of Eden Collection — lush, layered florals with a paradise palette

Or browse the full range of Australian botanical wall art prints — every one hand-painted, every one starting life as an original painting in my Sydney studio.