where giants fall…

this image renders me simultaneously awestruck and quietly sad…

{image via this tumblr}

tree sketches

i love the idea and execution behind these tree drawings by british artist tim knowles. the perfect expression of nature art.

ode to the cherry blossom…

thank you, spring!  my favourite tree is in full bloom – the cherry tree.  and after an hour’s jog to zoo lake this morning, filled with white and pink blossoms, my chest is glowing and, try as i might, i can’t seem to blot the silly grin from my lips!

{all images via pinterest & google images}

flower bomb

arresting photographs of deconstructed flowers by qi wei.

{via nicework}

my type of melancholy

there are times when i know that the only cure for my type of melancholy to seek out an avenue of trees & walk between and beneath them…

{image via pinterest}

ash ghosts

during bushfires if certain species of fallen trees catch fire, they burn down to nothing but white ash, leaving a perfect “shadow” of their former selves on the blackened earth…tree ghosts.

{image by michael poliza}

treehouse for big kids

a treehouse for adults…awesome!

cathedral of seeds

the award winning seed cathedral was created by heatherwick studio for the shanghai expo in 2010.

for the seed cathedral they showed off thousands and thousands of seeds collected by the royal botanical gardens in these stunning transparent acrylic rods that glowed and moved with the elements. since the expo, the sculpture has been dismantled but it is remarkable to look back at the shots and video clips. It is truly inspiring work.

{via black eiffel}

tree-home

it is official…this is where i want to live, this should be my home!

the word made wood

beautifully scripted typographic tree trunks by why not associates created for the crawley library in the UK…what an awesome idea…i think my future house will have its roof upheld by typographic trunks!

brainforest

this breathtaking, large scale installation is the work of gerda steiner & jorg lenzlinger.  using discarded telephone and computer cable, coastal flotsam & jetsam, gold leaf and botantical refuse they created this amazing artwork with the help of school children, gardeners & art students in kanazawa, japan, where the exhibition took place.

botanical bugs

i have many a bug-loving bone in my body and when i saw this gorgeous work on etsy, it was immediately inscribed on my wishlist…

sylvan typography

amazing woodland typography ad icons by teagan white

nesting

i would love to get one of these cosy hide-aways and string it up in a giant tree and while away my afternoon reading to the soft sway of the wind…

tree boxes

lizzie thomas is a paper artist based in the uk, who expresses her ideas through the media of paper cutting, woodwork, books arts and print.
her work is an exploration of narrative, myth and metaphor.

leaf carvings

these are leaf “carvings” by Nature’s Art from china.  natural leaf carving is actual manual cutting and removal of a leaf’s surface to produce an art work on a leaf.  the process of carving is performed by artists using tools to carefully remove the surface without cutting or removing the veins!

a salute to some grand daddy’s

i recently came across an image of methuselah – an ancient 4,800 year old tree, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine to be exact!  (and for all you budding botanists out there: pinus longaeva)  the idea of living organisms being that old simply overloads my imagination!

however, after wiki-ing & googling for a bit i discovered rachel sussman, a photographer working, in collaboration with biologists, on a project called the oldest living things in the world.  here are some of her images…

jomon sugi, japanese cedar (7000 years old)

sangole baobab, south africa (2000 years old)

spruce gran picea, sweden (9550 years old)

a forest

a forest is an atmospheric series of images by budapest-based photographer, akos major.  his other series: winterscapes, hallstatt and swanscapes are definitely worth perusal…

{thanks to Cath of wolfeyebrows for this great find}

flower fox

to whimsical creatures everywhere: have a wonderful weekend!

(image taken from pinterest)

my happy place

if only….

{image from here}

poppy-happy

although durban doesn’t truly experience winter, i can say with certainty that spring & impending summer are unpacking their bags and settling in.  in honourof the new arrivals, i bought a bunch of poppies yesterday…they make me grin each time i notice them, cheering up my room.

{images: my own}

succulent delight!

open on the last weekend of each month neville trickett’s St Verde is well worth the visit.  nestled in the dargle area of the midlands, st verde has a most fascinating succulent garden and nursery to browse through for botanical buys or pure visual pleasure.  there is also a little cafe that boasts the best cheese, herb & corn muffin (i am not alone in this bias)!

{images: my own from various monthly meanderings}

the spontaneous city

The Spontaneous City is a project by  London Fieldworks , which was formed by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson as an umbrella organisation for creative research and collaboration at the art, science and technology intersection. Typically, their projects engage with the notion of ecology as a complex inter-working of social, natural, and technological worlds.

“…love the strangely organic forms that are created by stacking these distinct modular box shapes together and happy to hear that they have been woven together using elastic bands, which means the structure can change over time as the tree grows.“

Read more…

botanicals, anatomicals & strange curiosities…

i love museums

give me some taxidermied specimens, latin catalogues, echoing halls and i will be one contented creature.  the work of this artist speaks of Victorian curiosity cabinets, university back rooms and medical displays, which ignite the collector in me…odd, i know.

green hermit

urnatur is a six-cabin wilderness retreat/ecolodge nestled near sweden’s lake vättern and is the perfect hideaway for quiet, reclusive creatures like myself…i would definitely hang my boots up in ‘moss cabin’ or ‘wolf cot’…

wolf cot

moss cabin