A Hobbit Trayscape
by Treebeard - 1st Place
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A Hobbit Trayscape History & background. There are many sources of inspiration for trayscapes. Nature is the most obvious, and should always be the prime source, but there are others. For this project I have taken my inspiration from literature, specifically J.R.R Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth. Tolkien was a great nature lover, with trees in particular being respected and admired. The creation of trayscapes is the most enjoyable thing for me in the hobby of bonsai. I have created several in the past, all inspired by the countryside around me. As Tolkien's inspiration for the hobbit realm of The Shire came directly from the English countryside, it is not too far fetched to use a fictional countryside as inspiration for a trayscape. As any reader of 'The Hobbit' will know, hobbits live in clean, tidy holes in the ground. These holes have round doors and windows, and are dug into the gentle hillsides of The Shire in Middle-earth. I wanted to create a trayscape featuring a hobbit hole, complete with round door, window and a front garden. Of course the trayscape would include a tree, or maybe several. Before I get into the article proper, I'd like to comment on the word 'trayscape'. Penjing and Saikei both seem to be inappropriate words to use to describe a Western-influenced planting. To me, these words are intrinsically Chinese and Japanese, and describe Chinese and Japanese plantings. There seemed to be a need for a new word in the bonsai lexicon, a word that could describe a Western-influenced planting, and the simple contraction of 'tray landscape' seemed most appropriate. Planning. figure 1 I don't normally sketch my plans out on paper, but this time I decided to give it a try (figure 1). For this project I imagined a round brick-lined doorway, a round window and a little brick chimney. These would be nestled into a hillside with a thick-trunked tree growing up close to the doorway. There would be some sort of fence, either picket or withy, enclosing a small front garden. I wanted the whole planting to be on a plain flat slab. Once I had all this roughly sketched on paper and worked in more detail in my mind I was able to plan out the order in which all the work would be done. I found that the project naturally separated itself into distinct parts: base, brickwork, woodwork, tree and accessories. Pages: |1| |2| |3| |4| |5| |6| |7| Print Friendly Version    Print Page Click to Vote on this article! Content Copyright, ©2006 bonsaiTALK - All Rights Reserved