Isles of Scilly Collection
In early May we took a painting expedition to the Isles of Scilly and the whole trip was completely drenched in good feelings. When I reflect on our time on Scilly I see very pale buttery yellow light, and it’s still giving me energy now, weeks later. The islands were full of giant, gorgeous flowers, there were unspoilt beaches and so many turquoises. Even the rocks glowed here.
The more beautiful the place is, the harder it can be to paint. It can feel pressured, like you owe the place to represent it to the best of your ability for the time you’re there. I had this feeling to start with, but day by day that dropped away, and I realised that even though we were there for just five days I’d be coming back for a lifetime.
It was then that the painting journey became just the start of the romance, carefree and wild.
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These are the canvases which I painted on Scilly in May. For pricing, availability and more images, please contact us on WhatsApp or email info@emilypowellstudio.com. Click here to browse the available paper works.
Thank you to the Isles of Scilly Travel for hosting the trip.
I’d Want My Ashes Here, St Martin’s
At the end of our hike across St Martin’s from quay to quay, suddenly this huge curved bay opened up to us. It was so bright and so unspoilt I could hardly take it in. Scilly has a really specific blue, like sky blue but with the finest bit of turquoise and when I saw someone had parked a red boat in the bay I was so happy – what a colour combination of pure joy.
90x70cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
You Need To Go To St Martin’s ASAP
We were dropped on the beach at Lower Town on St Martin’s and it’s up there with the best places I’ve ever stepped off a boat. It was something else. As soon as I landed on the beach, I started on this canvas, grappling with where I was and trying to note its beauty.
Move your holidays here, get your toes on this beach.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Wild Sea And A Flask Of Tea, Pelistry Bay
I had to throw paint at Pelistry, the wilder side of St Mary’s island. The sea was crashing about me and the work just needed to catch the energy. Painting outside is more than seeing, it’s about all the senses and really experiencing a place fully, and that’s why I love it so much.
150x120cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Lilipads And Yucca Flowers At Tresco Abbey Garden
The Abbey Garden on Tresco could inspire anyone into becoming a gardener. I have to admit that my normal understanding of plants comes from B&Q, but this was a whole other world. The plants were in charge here, and they were glorious, huge and overflowing with lusciousness.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Illuminated Rocks Of Porthcressa
I know so many famous artists have made a pilgrimage to St Ives for the light, but I couldn’t help but think when standing here that they needed to travel a little bit further and get on to the Isles of Scilly. Here there’s another level of light, which makes everything glow deeply. Even the rocks, and I didn’t even know that rocks could glow.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Agapanthus And Red Campions
I usually get lost and my mind wonders off when people talk about plants for too long, so I’ll keep it short. These plants were absolutely divine, on another level. Wild and free and bright colours everywhere. So potent with joy, time among them could be prescribed for joy-giving.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
SOLD
The View From Altamira, St Mary’s
This was my first painting on the island of St Mary’s after travelling from Land’s End with eager anticipation. I cracked open a big canvas, desperate to get the wonder and colour of this place into one piece. You’ll find trademark Scilly here; white sand, so much lush green, generous flowers, modest houses, turquoise sea, endless sky and islands floating in the distance.
150x120cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Good Tears At Pelistry
I get a bit emotional when I think about painting this one. Pelistry was such a generous beach stretching on for ages, and I think some landscapes can really let your brain relax and put things into perspective. Things like paying the bills and loading the dishwasher don’t matter here. This is a place that will be here way beyond any of our years.
200x80cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Ice Cream Bay
Looking across to St Mary's Church, Old Town is my favourite beach on St Mary's. It has everything; rocks, white sand, a tiny beautiful church and a gentleness I could only describe with a pastel palette.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Polreath Glasshouse, St Martin’s
The painting was already set up, all I had to do was describe it on the canvas. The traditional Scillonian glasshouse had an exotic tree l'd never seen before just outside it and I love that. The challenge of painting things l've never seen before extends the picture index in my brain and that's such a good feeling.
90x70cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
SOLD
Porthcressa Beach, St Mary’s
I was going to write ‘if a beach was a poem’ and then I laughed at myself… I think this is what the place does to you, you start writing in love poems, and its hard to grapple with words to describe how I felt when laying the paint down for this one. I was so happy to paint such a stunning beach but the responsibility to explain it in paint felt intense.
You can tell I really fell in love with Scilly, I say strange things, write poems, and paint pictures of it.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
The Best Pelargoniums At Tresco Abbey Garden
There’s nothing modest about the plants on Tresco and I love that, and I think we could learn a lot from them. So unapologetically themselves. But I won’t bang on about plants because no one needs plant poems from me - enjoy these pinks and reds instead.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Land, Sea And Sky
It was a moment that I’ll never forget. I don’t usually paint at sunset, usually it brings things too much into the shade and I dislike such high contrast. But this was an exception; it was so gentle, so pastel, so calm. We had just had tea and I was keen do one more painting before bed.
150x120cm
Unframed
RESERVED
Pink Gate View To Tresco From St Martin’s
Please go to St Martin’s and walk the coast path from quay to quay between the tripper boat drop off and pick up. It’s so hard to describe, so you have to feel it for yourself with every sense. Flower fields, old school red tractors, pink gates, turquoise sea, soaring birds, so so much.
St Martin’s is my favourite island, and maybe even my favourite place that I’ve ever been.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Cobalt Blue Shade At Tresco Abbey Garden
Layers and layers of shape and colour, I wanted to do a piece that was so indulgent, so full of all the shades that I could see and that really took some of the mark making away from the island with me. I really love finding new marks and Tresco offered so many new lines, dots and curves that I hadn’t seen before.
50x40cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
Sailing Boats Of Scilly
I spend a lot of time watching the fishing boats where I live in Brixham, but here there were sailing boats and observing them for the first time they very much reminded me of graceful white birds, even flockeding together. When we had tea at The Atlantic one evening I drew a sketch on the menu of one of the larger sailing boats out the window. This piece combines the lines I learnt of the boats that evening and the flowers I found whilst going round the island, weighted at the bottom with a vibrant pink as a nod to the island’s vitality.
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas
Unframed
