Response to a question

Well someone responded to my question at the end of my post on Monday 3rd December.
I asked "Can you guess what I intend to do with it?"
I was referring to this Scots Pine.

Well someone offered their idea and it's a nice effort.
What do you think. It's certainly do able.

I wonder how many of you like this design?

If you draw the centre of gravity through the design sketch, you can see that the tree reaches equally left and right of the line. Unfortunately this tree is neither formal upright or broom style and therefore should not be symmetrical. It should be asymmetric. So we have several options to put this right and two very obvious options. First of all we could remove the first branch up from the pot on the right hand side and shorten the next branch up above it by about 20%. This would have the tree directionally going to the left. Or we could pull in the first three branches on the left side so they hug the trunk line more but retain their relationship in space to each other have have the direction of the tree going to the right. Of course there are many more options.
For instance instead of removing the bottom right hand branch maybe it would be possible to pull it in close to the trunk?? This would again give direction to the left.
What I wanted to point out with this exercise here, was that the tree was not going either left or right in the original design and so directionally both sides were competing with neither giving strong direction.
So which one do you think I will go with. At this point you can go 50/50, ask the readers or phone a friend.

A beautiful morning!

04/12/2012
It was really crisp again first thing this morning. Defrosted the windscreen on the Tollster mobile at 6.15am then off to the gym. It is always great to be in the centre of Kidderminster so early when the place is so quiet. It was like a scene from the film "28 Days later" or "Dawn of the Dead" this morning. No people, no traffic, no sound.
Only the chatter of hundreds of Pied Wagtails roosting on Debenhams roof, waiting for the rays of the sun to warm them up, told me I was not an extra in an apocalyptic film. Came out the gym at 9.00am and as I walked across the car park to the Tollster mobile, a Raven 'kronked' from overhead. Yes Ravens in the centre of the town. What a beautiful morning!
Back home, I was straight out with the dogs for their first proper walk of the day. The sun was out, and although it's weak rays did not feel particularly warm, just the fact that the sun was out made me feel warm. The bottom meadow which is still under water from the swollen brook was covered in Mallards all calling their heads off, no doubt invigorated by the sun just as I was. Walking on the margins of the flooded field were two Muntjac deer. It is not easy to see Muntjac, they are a secretive little deer about the size of a Labrador. To see two out walking together on the white frost covered grass with the sun illuminating their beautiful red coats was something else. What a beautiful morning!
The day flew by with several people popping in. I could not get started on the Scots I have ear marked for styling. Dave Cheshire and Mike Saddler from Ambion BS came late morning. It was their first time here and as always it is entertaining for me to see how people respond on their first visit.
Mike had brought along his huge garden juniper for advice on and hopefully I sent him away with lots to think about after my critique.

School night was a full house, and it was great to have Peter Harrison make the trip over as we had not seen him for months due to commitments. He also left with a smile on his face and a nice yamadori Spruce in his car. If your reading this; Great to see you again mate. My thoughts are with you.

Some images from the evening.
This is Phil Holroyd (right) working on his newly acquired Sabina Juniper. This was one of the new trees from Spain. Established 3 years and ready to go. Originally assumed to be a twin trunk, it is in fact two separate trees in one pot. I really slipped up with that sale.
Click on the image to see a close up of Rod (left) working on his larch. The facial expression say's it all. But the question is, is it grim determination, intense concentration or simply constipation?

Some more of the guys.

Just in this small room shot, there are ten different tree species being worked on.
Sorry about all the cups in the right of the picture but the guys needed their coffee as it was a cold night, bless!

Christmas draws near.

Only 21 sleeps to Christmas, jeepers this year has flown by.

Tomorrow will be the last 'school' night for this year as the last Monday and Tuesday of the month fall wrong for the majority of people to attend. The school has gone from strength to strength and there are some nice trees coming through, but more importantly there are one or two good people coming along too. It can be difficult keeping the school going because as we all know, everyone on an internet forum is a 'Master'. Unfortunately most people never stop to think can the teacher/expert actually do bonsai and does he have trees to back up his advice. No they listen to the guy who makes the most noise.
As I said in an interview for "The Art of Bonsai" internet forum....
If bonsai was a sport, maybe more "experts" would be judged by their results. In Japan, Masters are judged on their trees. It is the trees who do the talking. Would you get a guy to teach you to run, who never won a race? You need to learn from those who can do bonsai. If I took up acting, I would be knocking on the door of Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino begging for lessons. 

You can read the full interview here;     http://artofbonsai.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=984

 
Over the years I have had one or two people leave for whatever reason and new people have taken the vacant slot. But I think now the attendees I have are in the main serious enthusiasts. The ones who originally came for a night out, cup of tea and a biscuit have left.
I have had several attendees leave for pastures new to try out elsewhere but they have nearly all returned. One or two were too embarrassed to ask if they could come back which is a shame.

One of the things that benefits those who attend is the vast variety of species that we work on over the year. This gives everyone the chance to learn not just on their own tree but also to learn from what the others are doing with their trees. Also we work with the same trees through the seasons and over the years. This is not fast fix bonsai, we don't do McDonald's bonsai here.

Here are some typical examples taken on a typical evening.

Richard working on a Japanese Yew, Taxus cuspidata.

Darren working on a Redwood,  Sequoia sempervirens.

Peter working on a new Itoigawa Juniper.

Several people have emailed me to try to persuade me to discuss certain topics, almost as if they want me to discuss taboo subjects. Since I did the 'dispelling the myths' entry, people are saying talk about who is the best at this or that etc. Please guys I am not trying to be controversial. I am just saying what I feel, what I know to be true, what really works or as I see things.

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I received a new stone today from Mr Zhang Xi of Shanghai China. The stone comes from Guang Xi.

It has a natural bottom, it has not been cut. The daiza is carved from softwood but is quite fragile.  

The stone measure 14 inches x 7 inches x 5 inches high.

Mr. Xi describes it as "a LaiBin stone, it is a water stone". I assume from this that it was collected in a river in Guang Xi somewhere and the type is LaiBin. I cannot as yet find any information on LaiBin stones. But I like the stone irrespective of that.

Here are a few images;

Update
I have now managed to find some information on Lai Bin stones and they are found in central Guang Xi.

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This morning I started work on another yamadori Scots Pine. I should be able to post the final image later this week as I have quite a few people visiting which will make progress slow.

Here is the tree, it is currently about 4 feet across. Can you guess what I intend to do with it.

Jet lag!

12.47 November 28th. 2012. and I have just got up. I feel like I have jet lag but without the pleasure of having travelled somewhere nice. This last week has caught up with me badly. So this morning I was up at 6.00am, took Kathy to work, came back and walked the dogs and loosed the chickens and geese out then went back to bed.
I feel a bit fresher but not much. At least I have an easy day today. Just need to collapse the cage pallets to send back to Spain and then I have a meeting with Kath and Malcolm Hughes over at Sutton Coldfield tonight to discuss the Best of British Bonsai event. I know what you are all thinking! It's not often you hear the words 'easy day and Kath Hughes' in the same sentence.

Only 25 sleeps till Santa according to the radio this morning. I think I will have to get my list done for Santa soon as I have been a good boy this year. Well I think so! I have even praised a few of my club attendees this year despite picking up the tag 'brutal' when critiquing their work. So I think I will ask Santa for a nice suiseki (I hope he knows Dave Sampson), or maybe a nice tree from Japan. Or maybe even a new piece of yamadori.
Unfortunately at this moment I do not have any trees coming from Japan. The yen/££ situation is just ridiculous making buying trees in Japan difficult. This is especially difficult when looking for a tree or trees for myself as I am not looking for commercial trees I want something a bit special. And the special trees come with special prices. So I am putting my money into yamadori mostly as I can get far more for my money.

When you can work with material like this, it gives greater scope for creativity. I am sure you will agree.


Mega frost here this morning, -4c so winter is officially here.

It's been bl...y hectic!

It has been 5 days since my last post I think, so I apologise for the delay. But it's been bloody hectic here.
The trees from Spain arrived amid a lot of initial excitement. The driver called to say he was in our lane but could not find the property. I gave him directions to our driveway and waited in anticipation. However as soon as the truck turned up my heart sank. There was no tail lift on the truck and immediately I thought, how are we going to get the pallets off the back. And then just to confirm my fears, the driver asked me if I had a fork lift truck. Unbelievable!
Apparently in their wisdom, TNT assumed as the address was Shades Farm, that I was a farmer living on a farm and therefore would have a fork lift truck about the place!
Or even a tractor would do.WHAT! I said to the driver that the neighbours house is 'Seafarers Cottage' but if your looking for the beach it's about three and a half hours drive due West as the crow flies. I think he appreciated my humour........not!
A quick call by the driver to headquarters, and I had the assurance that the trees would be delivered on Monday as all the truck's with tail lifts were booked. As it was Thursday, I was not leaving the trees another three days before getting them. So another chat with the depot took place and they said the trees would be delivered later that day as the driver would go back to the depot and move my pallets onto a truck with a tail lift and a pallet truck. So, off he continued with his delivery's, and my trees still on board.
As evening arrived and no trees had been delivered I was on the phone chasing my delivery, which no one seemed to know anything about at the depot. However after one of my calm, deep and meaningful conversations with the guy in charge, I was promised the trees would be delivered at 10.00pm that night.
At 10.30pm the phone went, and yes you guessed it. "This is TNT here, I can't find your property."
Well eventually the truck pulled up outside and I set to work unloading the pallets and checking on the trees in the torrential rain.
Next morning I was up at 6.00am unloading the pallets and taking the trees into the studio to check them over.
Here's some of the trees in the studio. Notice the unfinished Scots Pine in the middle of the floor.

All the trees had arrived in perfect condition and I could breath a sigh of relief. I spent most of Friday unwrapping the trees and taking photo's for the website.

Here are a few of the trees. First an Olive

 Then a nice Oak.

 And a nice powerful hollow trunk Oak.

Saturday was chaos as people arrived throughout the day to pick up their reserved trees. With several clients buying two trees once they had seen them in the flesh.
I would like to thank all of you who took me at my word and reserved trees from the images I provided and from my descriptions and reassurances. Thank's for showing faith!
Late Saturday afternoon we got another shock as Mo Fagan turned up out of the blue. For those of you who know Mo, you can understand seeing Mo would be a shock for anybody. Just joking Mo..........NOT!
Anyway, it was really great seeing Mo who had driven all the way up from Bristol on speck to see the oaks. He said as the oaks were Quercus faginea or as he saw it Quercus fagin, he just had to have one. And he did too, taking home a really nice twin trunk with a massive nebari. So Fagan left with a Fagin. All I need now are some Juniperus evans, Carpinus williams, Pinus smith and some Fagus jones and they should sell like hot cakes. I was really pleased for Mo as he went home a happy chappy and I am sure the tree will have a good future.
By Sunday I was shattered. But there were still several people popping in to look at trees. Marcus Watts popped in on the morning. He was on his way back to Cornwall after making a delivery near Birmingham. He also left a happy bunny taking with him a nice Itoigawa Juniper. By the way Marcus is the UK representative at the European final of the NEW TALENT competition which will be held in France Easter weekend 2013. Good luck Marcus.
Well Monday was my wedding anniversary so in order to keep the day free I decided on Sunday that I better get the Scots Pine finished. Oh did I mention it was 11.30pm Sunday evening when I had the idea. So at close to midnight I went over to the studio and set my sights on finishing the initial styling of the Scots Pine. At 2.45 am and after lots of Earl Grey tea, I finished the Scots Pine and went to bed content.
In case you forgot, here is the tree.

And after the first styling.

Sorry about the photo, but I was tired.
This first image is OK but next time I wire it I need to compact the foliage on the lower right branch more to the left and possibly shorten the pad as well by about two inches. But for now it's OK, Rome wasn't built in a day.
Another one in the bag!

A Scots and some stones!

In yesterdays post I said I was experimenting with some new photography back lights. Well I conceded defeat today and put it all back in the box and decided to get on with styling a tree. So today I brought an established Scots Pine into the studio and made a start.
Here is a picture of the tree.

 I have had this tree three years now since collection and it has not missed a beat.
The stick through the foliage is a quick and easy way to stop some of the thinner branches from hanging. Leaving branches to hang facing the floor only makes them weaker, so I just prop them up to receive the light and to keep the energy flowing to the branch. I am sure you are aware that when you create a cascade tree from a tree originally upright of form, it can be difficult to get the energy down to the lowest branches. The energy naturally going to the crown. Well it is the same with collected trees. It is important to keep the energy flowing to all parts of the tree and this is very difficult if the buds are aiming at the ground.

Here's a close up of the trunk.

The base and trunk show interesting form now that the tree has been tipped on it's side. You can see that there are several cut off branch stumps that need to be addressed.

Here are a couple of the jin I created today.

I have more jin to create and then I will look at pruning the branches for correct structure.
Just a tip for creating jin. It does not matter whether you carve using a machine or if you carve using hand tools. But please try to avoid merely sharpening the tip of the branch to a point, try to add movement or character to the branch. There is nothing more annoying than jin that look like a sharpened pencil.
I can recall the first demo that I witnessed in Europe when on my travels This guy created the worst pencil style jin on his tree that I have ever seen. I remember thinking, either this guy was the class pencil sharpening monitor in his school days, or else he was a descendant of Van Helsing and was carrying on the family tradition of vampire slaying. Well he did a great line in sharpened stakes anyway.

It is important to get the structure of the tree right early on. It is in the first styling that we create the skeleton of our design. Then over time we 'flesh out' the skeleton by growing new branches, generating more buds and slowly filling in all the gaps and where necessary extending branches to fill the desired profile of our design. It is interesting when watching demonstrations, how most people just cut off what branches they don't need for their design, but then wire everything else on the tree. There is no structuring of branches.
In the image below you can see the nice healthy buds with their protective wax coating.

I said in my last post that I would post some photo's of some recently acquired stones. Here is the new Furuya Ishi from Japan, courtesy of Dave Sampson. It is only a small stone, but as with most Furuya Ishi it has great detail.

The two Chinese stones were very different. The first is a Red River stone or Dahuashi. It is not my normal type of stone but I like it. Unfortunately it arrived with the daiza split in two. However I can get another daiza carved but a broken stone would have been a disaster.

The second stone from China is a Lingbi stone. I like the stone but the daiza is very poor and I will definitely be getting it replaced.

Tomorrow is another day. I have the Scots Pine to style and my trees from Spain are being delivered  so a busy day ahead.

Good news!

Last night I had a lovely surprise when my eldest daughter Amy, called from Nepal where she is on a teaching assignment for nearly a year. She has just returned from a two week trek which she had scheduled into a break from teaching while the children are on holiday.
Amongst the many interesting and exciting things she related to me, was her description of seeing shohin size cotoneasters with beautiful craggy bark growing at 4,000 metres near Annapurna base camp. That's my girl!
However she took no photo's for her old Dad and there are non boxed up and in the post. So I will have to hold off posting her Christmas hamper just to teach her a lesson. You just can't get the staff nowadays!
But readers of my blog fear not. I am in the process of organising a 50 man Sherpa led expedition just like the old orchid collectors of the 1800's put together, to attempt to find and collect some specimens from my local garden centre. I am just waiting for my altitude sickness pills to arrive!

I had some more good news in the form of an email confirming that the new yamadori trees from Spain were in transit and well on their way. I am really looking forward to receiving them later this week.

Well I am well and truly on wind down now for Christmas and the New Year. I have one more One to One workshop booked and then I am downing tools so to speak and taking some time to reflect on this past year, the good the bad and the ugly. (That would be a good title for a film, Ummm).
I have a number of styling projects in the pipeline for myself, both Japanese imported trees and yamadori, and I am going to work my way through some of them slowly at my pace without having to watch the clock.

We had horrendous winds here yesterday and two shohin were blown off the benches but fortunately they were fine, no damage done. We have had three mornings of really good frost, then high winds and mild and now today it is hammering down with more rain. Still I guess it keeps us guessing!

I have just bought three nice stones. One is a Furuya Ishi from Japan, and then one is a really nice Red River stone from China. The final stone is a Lingbi stone also from China. I will try to post some photo's tomorrow when I have more time. At the moment I am experimenting with some new photo back lights for the studio as I want to be able to take good quality studio shots to illustrate my work better. I also have two different back ground cloths as well so I am playing around at the moment to get things right.
It's great fun!