Gee thanks guys, I savour your comments with gratitude and inspiration.
The trees are made from the old flower/fruit heads of the Hardhack plant. These plants shed their leaves in October leaving the great looking tree like heads.
Hardhack website This page shows what the plant looks like during the year as well as October.
Hardhack is found in moist, sunny areas from sea level to subalpine habitats. It is found in damp meadows, swamps, bogs, streambanks, lake margins, and in ditches. It is shade-intolerant and can survive lengthy shallow inundation when the water table raises.
Hardhack may be found from southern Alaska south along the Pacific coast to northern California, and east in southern British Columbia to northern and central Idaho, northeastern Washington, and into northeast Oregon. It is commonly found in the Cascades. It may be found in the Columbia River Gorge between the elevations of 100'-4000' from the western approaches to the gorge to as far east as Horsethief Butte State Park.
I started with a bag of cut heads that Shaywen had brought me and picked off the remaining leaves and then airbrushed with acrylic green.
then painted the stems brown.
I then taped some together and added more paint until they look right. Shaywen took some painted heads and made pine trees by gluing a bunch into a drilled wooden trunk.
The skewers are about 2.9mm dia. Atlas telephone poles are 2.6mm and my Rix ones which look best are under 2.5mm. I guess they would make better transmission than telephone poles. They are a buck something for a big package at the local chinese store.
The Sun is actually a 150 watt flood lamp that Shaywen expertly included in the shot. She claims that it's serendipity but I think she's hiding her skill behind big words.
