December, inside and out

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.

Comments

[Linda Colgan]

Laura,the sketchesaregoodasalways.It seems allarein the christmas spirit:)
Linda

[Terri]

I love your interiors. They are always so full of detail, colour and warmth. Your Christmas tree looks lush and lovely. The captions download first and I usually read them whilst waiting for the images to download. So when you mentioned the bottle tree, I already had an image in my mind. Here in Australia - in Qld in particular - this is what we call a bottle tree:
http://www.grasstree.com/bottletree.htm So you can see why I was surprised by your colourful creation. :o)

[Tom G]

The reflection of the tree in the window is masterful. Beautiful work.

[marly]

Here's a house for the bottle tree:
http://www.airliegardens.org/photo_gallery.asp?albumid=5&photoid=44&page=&photopage=...

I am fond of bottle trees and Christmas trees--both having something to do with the eternal (ghosts! heavenly visions! evergreen dreams!), both fooling around with tree-dressing, both wonderfully shiny and light-catching. And I second the remark about the reflection-perfection.

[Robyn]

I was tricked by the bottle tree too, being familiar, as I am, with the Australian version. I add my appreciation to all above regarding your Christmas tree - the clever depiction of its lights and the elegance of all the other objects. Today I particularly love your sketch of the hydrangea - without the distraction of your wonderful colours, one can really appreciate the liveliness and beauty of your lines and composition.

[Kate (Cathy) Johnson]

Silly me, all the times I'd imagined bottle trees, after reading of them, it never occurred to me how PRETTY they might be! All those different colors and shapes...lovely, Miss Laura!