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 semicircl
es.
I apologize for the misplacement of captions. I can't seem to work out how to match image with words in this case.



Laura,the sketchesaregoodasalways.It seems allarein the christmas spirit:)
Linda
Posted by: Linda Colgan | December 17, 2006 at 06:14 PM
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)
Posted by: Terri | December 17, 2006 at 06:37 PM
The reflection of the tree in the window is masterful. Beautiful work.
Posted by: Tom G | December 17, 2006 at 08:52 PM
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.
Posted by: marly | December 18, 2006 at 01:56 AM
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.
Posted by: Robyn | December 18, 2006 at 05:57 AM
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!
Posted by: Kate (Cathy) Johnson | December 18, 2006 at 09:05 AM