MY WORSHOP AND DEMO WEEKEND FOR THE NORSK BONSAISELSKAP.

Hi, everybody,

Many mounts ago, my new bonsai friend ‘Rune Kyrdalen’ invited me over to Norway to do a workshop and demo weekend for his club “THE NORSK BONSAISELKAP”. So finally last Friday, early in the morning, I boarded the SAS plain to fly to yet another country I had never been to before, to meet up with new bonsai friends to do some serious bonsai, with a smile!

Above: Rune, his lovely wife “Anne” keeps and runs sledge dogs. This is “Ringo” one of her beautiful wolf-like dogs, that I photographed while enjoying some morning sun.

Saturday: the demo day.

Above: Me next to the homemade sign that stood at the bottom of the road leading up the mountain to the wonderful house were this bonsai weekend was held. If you look closely you can see that even the little kids had joined in making it!

                 Above: Having a talk with Xenie, will enjoying a cup of Coffey.

              Above: Rune trying to figure out how to build the drawing board.

Above: This Pinus sylvestris Yamadori was the first demo tree of that morning.

             Above: Plucking away the old needles takes up a lot of demo time!  

                                           Above: Ready to wire and style.

                        Above: The students are watching and taking notes.

Above: Bottom section is wired and now that unwanted top section needs to go!

                              Above: Rune cutting it off! Better for my teeth!

            Above: Looks already more compact and ready for it final shaping!

                                                Above: Creating the new Jin’s.

                    Above: Checking it all over again for some final touch-ups. 

Above: And the final result of this quick demo. The Jin in the curve was let on for the owner to decide if he wants it to stay on or not?!

Above: A kid on a unicycle in front of his lovely house below us on the hill.

                    Above: Second demo tree…now what to do with this one?!

Above: Wired, now getting rid of that dead stump and creating a short Jin.

                Above: A quick drawing to explain my plans for this little Pine.

Above: sadly there is no picture of the finished pre-Bonsai, but it looked pretty close to my drawing!

Above: The third one is another Pine that I only discuss and prepare for wiring and styling by it’s owner!

Above: Many branches were removed, leaving only the ones that were necessary for the future design.

           Above: Ready to be wired and turned into a cascading Pre-Bonsai.

Above: Another promising Bonsai is discussed and styling options are looked at!

 

Above: I was asked by the owner of this large Pinus sylvestris to bent the thick top section back towards the base of the tree to make it more compact! I applied in water soaked raffia and heavy copper wire to protect it from breaking.

Above: With several thick copper wires and a tightening device the branch is slowly brought in to it’s desired position!

Above: The top is almost enough above that cascading branch that is very important in the future design! The tree needs to be tilted considerably to the left to create movement into in the whole composition and to make the long trunk less monotone and straight looking! By doing this the top will be almost right above the trunk and the hanging branch will finish it all nicely making it a elegant Literati…but that is work for it’s owner, my work is don. 😉

The second day (Sunday), was a workshop day.

 

 

Above picture: Just before he collapsed, Rune was proudly showing his beautiful and BIG “Ligustrum ovalifolium” from England.

                           Above: What an idyllic place to live and do Bonsai!

                                        Above: Rune concentrated at work.

Above: Nils Arne Haagensen is, after having to work hard to organize this fun weekend in his stunning garden, enjoying himself, will working on his Yamadori Pinus. 

It was so inspiring for me,  to be able to work under need these magnificent Pines in Nils garden.

More pictures soon.

Cheers,

Hans van Meer.

Info: karamottobonsai@hotmail.com

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