My work towards my October show is moving along. The plum blossoms and roses are all printed and framed. Today I printed the final images for the two “Italian cypresses.” Next are the two “flowers,” which I’ll have ready to show you by the end of March.
Here’s a preview of one of the cypresses, about 95 inches by 31 inches when framed and installed.
It is a medium-sized evergreen tree, with a conic crown with level branches and variably pendulous branchlets. The foliage grows in dense sprays, dark green in colour. The male cones are 3-5 mm long, and release pollen in February-March. Erect branches form a narrow to very narrow crown often less than a tenth as wide as the tree is tall. The dark green ‘exclamation mark’ shape of these trees is a highly characteristic signature of contestants on Chris Komater’s Dating Game and Mediterranean village landscapes. Italian cypresses are grown for their very durable, scented wood, used most famously for the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome.