Painting palm trees on a wall

When doing my book New Coastal, I wanted to have a how-to element.  Ways you could get a coastal mood. Some sea breeze in the house, no matter where you live.

Paint is a wonderful way of transforming a room.  Makes it feel fresher.  Doesn’t cost too much. Can be painted out.

I used as inspiration an old colour-by-numbers painting found at a flea-market. At first, I was cautious. But the faster I got, the looser the brush strokes - the better it looked.

One thing that made a big difference was to muting the colours. A slight greying off. Nothing too highly coloured and strident. 

I did it for a photograph for the book, to illustrate a point.  But afterwards I didn’t want to paint it out.  There’s something relaxing about it. Maybe it’s the shape of the palm tree. Even the very idea of a palm tree and what it represents…