I sat in my living room early this morning and looked at our Christmas tree, its lights reflected in the window behind it. It was the work of a minute to fetch my paints and pencils.
It has been a balmy day, so I headed for the botanical gardens and found my old friend, the bottle tree, looking splendid and cheerful against the clear sky.
Underneath today's sketch is a sketch of the bottle tree and environs from last June. And, from that same post, here's a bit of bottle tree history: Malevolent spirits are lured at night inside blue bottles on a bottle tree. When the sun's first light touches the glass, the evil beings are destroyed. Bottle trees were found in rural, primarily African-American, communities in the southern United States. This bottle tree, underplanted with okra, is part of a collection of historical plantings placed in raised beds at the North Carolina Botanical Garden.I had a few minutes before meeting my husband for lunch, so I drew an elegant hydrangea, bereft of almost all color, but full of texture, its dried blossoms overlapping each other in soft semicircles. I apologize for the misplacement of captions. I can't seem to work out how to match image with words in this case.
Your sketches are so lovely. I love the bottle tree. I saw a rather large one with many bottles in the hills near Galena, IL. It was stunningly beautiful.
Posted by: joyce | December 25, 2006 at 01:56 AM
Hi everyone! Thank you for your interest and great comments on the reflections and the bottle tree. Like many of you, I'm rushing around trying to get holiday things done, so won't have time to properly respond, but know that I cherish every single comment. Thank you, thank you!
Posted by: Laura | December 20, 2006 at 11:50 AM
Lurking a bit, given all the holdiay baking/cooking/working/etcetera-ing...but loving the year's scope on where you were, and where you've gone.
Posted by: Lori Witzel | December 19, 2006 at 10:52 PM
What I like about the interior (besides the great reflection on window) is how it moves from the warm tones on the left to the cool tones on the right. Very nice!
Posted by: df | December 19, 2006 at 03:24 PM
by the way
if you'd like a snowflake
a swap is not required...
Posted by: zephyr | December 19, 2006 at 09:45 AM
such gifts you bestow upon us!!
i can't decide which i love best
how nice i don't have to choose!
;^)
Posted by: zephyr | December 19, 2006 at 09:37 AM