Visual Inspiration

So far this trip has been a huge source of visual stimulation and inspiration! I am completely absorbed by the trees, the plants and the scale of plant growth here. I've seen jade plants, which I've grown indoors all my life, as shrubs with trunks bigger around than the widest part of my arm! Bottlebrush trees at home are nice, small trees that the hummingbirds visit. Here the Bottlebrush trees are enormous, and litter the streets with their spent flowers. I can't see up into the top of the tree to see if there are hummingbirds there, but I have to imagine they are up there having a Thanksgiving feast!

Yesterday, I went for a run in the Presidio on what is called the Ecology Trail. Oh my. It was such a change from the rest of the park. I was running on trails, through the forest and the flora went from hilly grasslands to a dark forest. The forest was so amazing, I stopped just to look around. The trees were so tall and their canopy so complete, that almost no sunlight got in. There were no other plants growing on the floor of this forest, and no limbs on the trees except for the ones at the top, so it was this crazy space of vertical lines and darkness and quiet. I think I will be going back with my sketchbook just to spend a little time there. The funny part of the story is that I am currently reading a vampire book, and my imagination took over here. What a perfect place for a vampire... and so I ran on to get out of that place! Nothing like a little imagination to bring a scary book to life!

But anyway, this place is a wonderful source of inspiration and I can wait to get going on my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project. If you didn't see that post, it was the last one I wrote before this.. I think that I will definitely be using some of this new imagery of plants in my sculptures when I get home and get back to working in clay. Which, by the way, my hands are really starting to miss after just one week!