Annunciation
21 Aug 21 by justatest
Over-zealous in my early attempts at pruning resulted in the unfortunate demise of some trees, as in the case of this alder.

Completed front view

Completed 3/4 rear view from studio side

Completed three quarter front view from road side

Completed three quarter back view from road side

Covering wire weaving cordylion leaves

Base structure with missile

Base structure with missile
Wire structure with inserted missile (includes ´Pica Piccoletta´ blackbird cheese lover and art enthusiast)

The sections had to be assembled outside as it turned out too big to fit through the studio door.

Building the structure

Building the structure
First section of base structure (with wall sketch)

Then there was the big job of making the structure with loose-woven wire. The massively tedious process involves tightly wrapping a piece of wire around each twist of the weave in order to make it robust enough to stand. As motivation in this boring activity I drew an image of how I perceived the finished piece on the wall.

Coat of red oil

Once dried, I had painted it with a red madder. I´ll probably seal it with a waterproof glue or resin, and then varnish.

3. What´ll I do with it?

3. What´ll I do with it?
doodling what to do with this thing

A wire cage filled with broken rock.
[ Update, some months later: ]
There´s a war going on in Ukraine with Russian ordnance raining explosive shells and rockets down upon civilians in a most horrifying and indiscriminate fashion. Should I continue with this, given that it might be misconstrued as glorifying the destruction, killing and maiming visited on the Ukrainian people by their evil neighbour in such a cowardly way?

2. Indoors to dry

2. Indoors to dry
broken tree

Drying out the base of the trunk by scraping down to the more intact wood.

1. End of life

1. End of life
dead and decaying alder

By the time I got around to doing something with the tree, it had almost completely rotted in the wet soil. As I was digging it out, the trunk snapped in two pieces.