Feb 3 2013

Sunday Workshop – Me

and then is was me 🙂

As previously posted, I had opted to work on this Scots Pine.

Ryan asked about its history and what way I saw the tree going. I pointed out it’s problems as I saw them, namely the roots, heavy branches in the apex and the position of the secondary trunk in relation to the main trunk.

After a look Ryan suggest that the tree be tilted to the right to change the level of the roots and solve the nebari issue. One root can be removed at repotting. He removes a few heavy branches and started me off wiring the mini apex on the right and the secondary apex in the middle with heavy wire. This allows us to change the angle of the secondary trunk more to the front.

Ryan impressed me greatly by his ability to move around the room keeping everyone on target at the right time and make adjustments when required. Peter Warren is the only other person I have seen manage this. Must be something to this Japanese apprentice carry on 🙂

As I moved around the tree wiring Ryan was able to point out a few different techniques in wiring. That 45 degree angle thing you read about in all the books and hear preached by most bonsai guru’s can be safely shelved especially when wiring with copper. I haven’t done a lot of copper wiring, strange after 18 years in bonsai, but I found it OK to be honest. Gauging the weight of the wire was the new bit for me but a few branches in, it was straight forward. Towards the end of the workshop Peter Warren stepped up and gave me a hand to get all the wiring complete on time. Cheers Peter 🙂 It was a good chance to chat about …. nah I’ll keep that conversation to myself 😀

Throughout the workshop, Ryan would appear and do a little placing of branches or adjust branches that I had placed. Then at the end he sat down to make the final adjustments. I think the whole feeling of the workshop is captured in these next photos, just look at all the smiling and laughter, a great day in good company but still achieving quality work.

Grinning like a complete eejit 🙂 why the hell not, working with Ryan Neil. Peter Warren and Peter Snart, hard to beat it I think.

and the final image

As usual the photo just doesn’t do it justice.Here is a side by side before and after.

Those left at the end got together for a wee memento photo. Good times.

Feb 2 2013

Kokufu 2013

It would appear that Mr Warren is teasing us with live posts direct from Kokufu! He will probably stop now that he knows folk are looking, he’s fickle that way 😀

If you’re interested, click on the image blow to link to his blog post.

Feb 2 2013

Sunday Workshop – Phil

Starting with Phil’s tree, this rather large Scots Pine was selected by Phil for a particular reason. Most people who had done the workshop wanted direction with their tree or refinement. Phil however was more interested in learning techniques, most notably bending techniques. This Scots Pine was always going to need bending in some way to make it a viable bonsai sometime in the future.

This is the tree before we started.

Ryan asked for ideas about its future, some said put it back in the ground and one said put it back in the van 🙂 Ryan said that there is always something that can be done.

After some discussion about styling options with everyone there, Ryan opted to remove two of the trunks initially and set Phil to work creating jins using hand tools and a bit of rip and tear.

The next step was how to bend such a heavy branch/trunk. Ryan demonstrated the technique of sawing into the trunk and removing a very small wedge. This was then bend down to meet again and sealed. This was done in two places on the trunk.

Phil describes what the top of the jin looks like.

The branch that was to make the new apex also needed a severe bend. Ryan removed some of the thickness by creating a shari and then running copper wire along the length of the shari before Phil applied the raffia. This allowed the branch to be bent at almost 90 degrees.

Phil gets on with wiring the remainder of the tree.

Ben lends a hand with the wiring.

Ryan’s guy line setup.

Feck’n eejits the pair of them. Apologies if you find them offensive, but you try getting a photo of them without Phil the fingers getting his way!!

The spare branch which was under consideration as an apex is now jinned.

and after Ryan places the branches as a skeleton of it’s future design.

The wire team

It fitted in the van a lot easier on the way home 🙂

and just to prove it made it home….

before and after..

Feb 1 2013

Willowbog Trees

While at Willowbog I took some photos of Peter’s own collection and some sale trees over the 3 days. Not an easy task in heavy snow. I even took a few several times as the snow changed during our stay.

Here’s a gallery.