Sep 13 2012

Sneak Pot Preview

On Tuesday I visited Susan, a local Ceramic Artist, who had visited our club show back in June. She showed an interest in both the accent pots and bonsai pots in the display. Not wanting to miss an opportunity we both got talking and Tuesday saw me visiting her studio to collect a batch of accent pots.

We don’t have a single pot maker in Northern Ireland since Jackson Conn stopped making his excellent pots. Now Susan has appeared on the scene, I hope to make this one stick 🙂 As Susan doesn’t have a bonsai background, I was excited to see just what she would come up with after very little direction from me. I was delighted with the results and hopefully the club members will be too when I take her first batch to the meeting this Friday.

Here are two that I’m holding onto to whet your appetite. Watch this space, I will be adding a page of her pots here on the blog for anyone interested and will be giving you more information about Susan.

This was my favourite one. I love the glaze and design with the tilt to one side. I can just picture this with a fern or hosta.

This is the most unusual one of the batch! I’m sure it’s not to everyone’s taste but I just love it. Haven’t a clue as yet to what will go into it. I love the plaited clay design and the variation in colour on the pot.

Sep 4 2012

Yew Two

The second yew styled was also on the ‘to go’ bench. I can’t even remember where this one came from, possibly a club auction many years ago.

It had previous been styled by someone but not very well. It had also been very weak. It was now back to full health but the manufactured ‘s’ bend on the trunk was terrible to look at and the foliage was far removed from the best feature, the base of the tree. I wanted to bring the two together to make a more compact and interesting tree.

This the after image. I applied raffia to the upper trunk and bent it down making more convincing movement bringing all the areas of interest closer the the best part of the tree, the lower trunk. The jin to the left needs to be reduced but is currently acting as a wire anchor point. With some back budding and a little more refinement, this is going to be a rather nice tree with interesting trunk movement. The jin can be extended into a shari down into the lower trunk making a nice feature and perhaps even extended along the upper trunk to link up with the small jin there.

Sep 3 2012

Yew One

I have had a couple of yews sitting on the raw material bench for a while. Again I had these for sale in case a beginner wanted to start with a piece of raw material. As I previously stated, I am clearing out and figured that these won’t go anywhere as they are now. I decided to do the initial styling and look to move then on next year.

Here is the first one.

It’s an old tree and was void of branches down one side of the tree. I decided to add a shari and shape the image around this feature . This is it when I was completed. With another years growth this should make a nice image. Some further carving will be required once the wood dries out.

Aug 25 2012

For Sale

The observant of you will have noticed a ‘For Sale’ Tab appearing at the top of the blog during the week. I am not trying to start a business or make my fortune at bonsai [Has anyone ever ❗ ] Anyone will tell you that I have too much material sitting about and I just need to thin out. I will not be blogging about every sale trees either, I’ll just add them to the page.

There is an eclectic mix on there already. Some raw trees suitable for beginners, some semi styled trees or pre prepared trees and a few that are pretty much were they need to be. Some aren’t even mine!!

I have sold trees for years to help finance my hobby but these have all been collection only. After selling one through a forum last week I have decided that it isn’t quite as much hassle to post one as I thought.

If you are interested click here for the page and each tree image can be clicked for further information. If you are just being nosey, I’m sure you’ll go ahead and look anyway 🙄

Mar 28 2012

Field Maple

This is one of the trees I have on the For Sale List this year. It’s a Acer Campestre or Field Maple. It was repotted this year after it’s first wiring. I had been doing a lot of clip and grow for a few years to prepare it for wiring. It has just come out in leaf and I thought I’d share.