Spent a few hours this afternoon talking to a group about bonsai. I get asked to do this on a regular basis and it can get a little mundane. Today it was about 35 retired NHS doctors and nurses in Bangor, County Down. I owe a lot to the care these people give, and was happy to do the talk. I even had Stephen along for some heavy lifting to save my iffy neck.
I gave a short history of bonsai to start. I then use trees on display to explain how bonsai are created and what can be used. I always do a little bit on the so called indoor bonsai and then I throw it open for questions at the end and get the usual ones!
How much do they cost?
Is it cruel?
How old is that one?
You’ve heard them all before!!
However I think the shape of this pot suits the tree better. I suppose personal taste comes into this. I even added a few extra berries 🙂
Having done the one above I decided to shrink the pot a tad. This , I think, is the best of the 4 options I tried.
Three faults that I tried to tackle where:
I was able to hide number 1 by adjusting the foliage of the pad with wire dropping it to break the line of the branch. Straight lines in an image catch the eye.
Again, number 2 was concealed by dropping the foliage from another branch down in front of it. Further growth will be needed to complete this.
Fault 3 was solved by a little wiring in the apex to move the foliage to create a nicer apex but also stop the eye being drawn ring through the image to the straight back branch.
I then decided to play about with the position of the primary branch by using a guy line to pull it backwards.This is hard to see in a 2D image. I may decide to change this again.
The apex was a problem, not much to work with. A some point a shari will be needed to disguise the chop mark.
After a little work.
With a years growth this should make a nice image.
Bonsai Eejit 