As huge fans of The Hobbit and of amazing art and crafts, we just had to share this amazing Hobbit Bonsai ‘trayscape’ created by artist and bonsai enthusiast Chris Guise from England. Called ‘Bag End Bonsai Trayscape’, Chris re-created the famous home of Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins where both the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit tales begin and end. The level of detail is just amazing and is a real cool piece of living artwork.
If you’ve forgotten what The Shire and Bag End looks like from Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies, here’s a quick reminder:
“Not long after I bought this tree I carved a shari down the trunk, covered the edges with cut paste and left it alone. After two years the edges had callused over nicely. Not long after I did it I decided that I would like to hollow out the trunk further” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“The carving work was done with a dremel, using various small carving bits.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“After fitting the drainage mesh and tie-wires to the slab a mound of akadama was placed on it and the tree gently positioned and secured. I then built a peat/clay ‘muck’ retaining wall around the outside backfilled it with potting soil.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“After the brick front was secured I started work on the back. I needed to build up a high mound of soil behind the frontage, even higher that the top of the bricks so I decided to try using florist’s Oasis as a filler. It is very light, obviously absorbs lots of water and is easy to cut and shape. It was secured to the back of the brickwork with wire and was then covered over with a thin layer of muck and potting soil.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“The frontage was built onto a plastic mesh backing. The mesh binds everything together so that the finished item is able to withstand a lot of handling. The bricks were cut from a roofing tile, tumbled to knock the sharp edges off and cemented around a round plastic former. After the window and door were finished the space in between was bricked up.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“The brass doorknob was turned on my small metalworking lathe. After rough turning it was finished off with fine emery paper and then wire wool.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“For the fence, strips of Meranti wood were split with a knife and wound together with anodised aluminium wire. Before assembly the strips were given a coat of diluted dark wood stain to take away the freshly cut look, and the wire was aged by rubbing it with wire wool.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
“I had built a slate path up from the gate to the front door, with a little paved area extending under the window. The cracks and gaps between the slabs were filled in with little tufts of moss.” – Chris Guise on Flickr
To see his bag end ‘trayscape’ and many more beautiful Bonsai trees, check out Chris Guise’s stream on Flickr.
