This next post has been posted here before Juli 2009. But after using it again a few months ago during a workshop for my students and all the positive reactions that I got afterwards I decided to post it again here on my blog! I hope it will help those who struggle with the principles of downsizing the large image of a real tree into a Bonsai size.
Hi, everybody,
I wanted to tackle the subject of downsizing the image of a full-size tree into a compact miniature version. Off course, Bonsai is not the simple copying of trees from nature, but understanding how it works can help you to realize your own ideas. I will use an imaginary example of a 50 cm/20 Inch high Bonsai and will, later on, use two of my own Bonsai of that same height to make things clear!
After surfing the web, I found a wonderful dark silhouette image of a tree to use as an example.
The above silhouette gives us enough info we need to recognize what it is. Even without the wooden bench underneath the tree, we can figure out how tall, big and far away from us this tree is. So if we use these same features that give us all that info in our Bonsai, we will at least end up with the right proportion in our little tree. And that is not a bad start, believe me!
Above: So here is the silhouette of this tree clearer to see. I have removed the two small branches that were growing low on the trunk, to make things even clearer to see. And while I was at it, I planted the tree in a Bonsai pot. Looks good already, doesn’t it?
Above: The yellow dots show the outlines of the frame/skeleton of this tree. This design as Bonsai would be about 20 inch/50 cm high and material with a trunk and branches like this can easily be purchased from any Bonsai dealer that imports Acer palmatum or Ulmus but for example, a Beech or Hawthorn would do just as easily! But the amount of foliage you see here would be hard to archive with the too-large foliage of most deciduous species we could use to create this image with as a Bonsai. So we should divide the messy foliage into more compact and well-outlined foliage pads. By doing this, we will create more open spaces, that clearly open up the foliage pads from each other.
Above: Here I created some clearer open spaces between the foliage layers. It is the same image, but this time it is doable to shape it as a Bonsai. In principle, you only have to fill those outlined foliage pads with the larger leaves of the species you use to create this image.
Above: Here I filled these foliage pads with the foliage I borrowed from my own Carpinus betulus with exactly the same size as this imaginary Bonsai 50 cm/ 20 Inch. I placed the silhouette and a picture of my Carpinus next to each other and then cut and pasted the foliage onto the silhouette. So the size of this foliage in comparison to the trunk and height are accurate. So as you can see this could already be doable and believable as a Bonsai.
Above: Here I filled those foliage peds with the foliage of my same-sized Acer palmatum. Again the size of the foliage is accurate. So again, doable and believable!
Even though like in most Bonsai, the leaves are monstrously big in comparison to the tree image we have created, the outlines of the trunk, branches and foliage pads are correct, making it a believable image that reminds us of the trees we see in nature. Just like the painter, who only uses a few brush strokes to paint all the foliage of a large branch, we sometimes only use a few leaves to create all the imaginary foliage of a large branch.
Thanks for listening again,
Hans van Meer.
Info: karamottobonsai@hotmail.com
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The Bonsai Blog of Hans van Meer 