Hope you all enjoyed the craic in part one, or should that be CRACK!
Here’s part 2, part 3 tonight when I get home from work.
If you are not currently following Peter Warren’s blog posts from the Green club and Kokufu Ten, then you should be.
with his usual pithy comments he has been showing us some interesting bonsai both in the exhibition and also on the sales tables at the club.
Here is a selection of the photos he been posting.
I sat down yesterday morning to try and edit the demo day video with Ryan at Willowbog into something shorter without missing out the interesting bits. That proved to be a hard task! Ryan keeps up the commentary, questions, and stories pretty much the whole way thorough! I have therefore got Four parts to share with you totalling 3 1/2 hours of footage! I’ll share as I get them uploaded.
This is a lot of viewing and I know that many will not want to be bothered wading through it, however, others have asked to see the complete session. Down the line I might upload some of the individual learning moments or pearls of wisdom given by Ryan.
I had a nightmare with the video camera and was missing the first few hours of footage but thankfully Phil the fingers had it recorded on our backup/closeup camera and I have edited both together.
On our trip over to Willowbog and also on our way back we popped into Mike’s place for a look around his trees. Mike is an old mate from bonsai days past and after a break from the hobby for a few years, he jumped back in with both feet.
You’ll have seen Mike in the photos of the Sunday workshop. Hard to miss, a long haired biker covered in tattoos. Here’s some of the photos I snapped on the way out and the way home.
2 of 2. Now making a start on editing the demo footage. Not easy as Ryan keeps the information flow going throughout!
You will have seen Ryan talking about Pines elsewhere on Youtube but I think this one is slightly more detailed and well worth a watch.
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.
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.
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