Smoke
Ignore-Amus
Bonsai is about evoking feelings. Like all art, the feelings may be simple or complex. Maybe a past memory or childhood remembrance. Maybe the tree you proposed to your sweetheart under or carved your initials. The point is stirring a feeling or emotion is what art is all about. To remove the art aspect of the hobby removes emotion or feeling leaving a viewer flat.
The ways we create emotion or feeling in our work is to add movement, visual speed, forced perspective and human visual cues. These human cues are sub-conscience and seen without notice. If I draw to figures on a piece of paper, two emotions or feelings are felt. On the left we feel youth, young, sky reaching. On the right, we feel heavy load, old, sagging, reaching for the ground.
We can use these to our advantage. We strive to make our trees look old. We help convey that age by drawing our branches in a down word direction helping convey a sagging old feeling. The stick figures above are not very interesting. The straight lines are boring and have no movement. Movement also adds age. Young trees grow fast and quick to get the best advantage for sunlight. This is best achieved by growing straight up and fast. gravity is less due to the powerful growth of young trees. As a tree ages this gravity starts to take effect and droop branches downward only to have the new buds in spring direct new growth upward, and have it droop again in the coming years. This constant sagging and upward growth adds movement to the branches as well as the trunk as it seeks the best opportunity for light. If we add movement to the above stick figures what can we learn.
The figure on the right is still youthful but has more grace and femininity, another human cue, "gender". We associate tall and graceful with feminine and stocky and twisted with masculine. The figure on the right is crooked and bent and twisted with a sagging branch, definitely old and masculine.
The scalene triangle.
This is probably the most important aspect of creating a good tree. A scalene triangle is one that does not have equal length sides nor even angles. On the left is a scalene triangle and on the right is the principle applied to a drawing of a tree. On most trees the canopy should be in the shape of a triangle. For the sake of simplicity lets keep to basics and simple rules of artistry before we go breaking them. A triangle canopy is equally important horticulturally because the shorter branches on top keep from shading the branches below them.
Before we move on lets recap:
The ways we create emotion or feeling in our work is to add movement, visual speed, forced perspective and human visual cues. These human cues are sub-conscience and seen without notice. If I draw to figures on a piece of paper, two emotions or feelings are felt. On the left we feel youth, young, sky reaching. On the right, we feel heavy load, old, sagging, reaching for the ground.
We can use these to our advantage. We strive to make our trees look old. We help convey that age by drawing our branches in a down word direction helping convey a sagging old feeling. The stick figures above are not very interesting. The straight lines are boring and have no movement. Movement also adds age. Young trees grow fast and quick to get the best advantage for sunlight. This is best achieved by growing straight up and fast. gravity is less due to the powerful growth of young trees. As a tree ages this gravity starts to take effect and droop branches downward only to have the new buds in spring direct new growth upward, and have it droop again in the coming years. This constant sagging and upward growth adds movement to the branches as well as the trunk as it seeks the best opportunity for light. If we add movement to the above stick figures what can we learn.
The figure on the right is still youthful but has more grace and femininity, another human cue, "gender". We associate tall and graceful with feminine and stocky and twisted with masculine. The figure on the right is crooked and bent and twisted with a sagging branch, definitely old and masculine.
The scalene triangle.
This is probably the most important aspect of creating a good tree. A scalene triangle is one that does not have equal length sides nor even angles. On the left is a scalene triangle and on the right is the principle applied to a drawing of a tree. On most trees the canopy should be in the shape of a triangle. For the sake of simplicity lets keep to basics and simple rules of artistry before we go breaking them. A triangle canopy is equally important horticulturally because the shorter branches on top keep from shading the branches below them.
Before we move on lets recap:
- Movement in the trunk and branches adds dynamism
- Tall, graceful subtle bends mean feminine
- Jagged twisting exaggerated movement means masculine
- Downward bending branches mean great age
- A scalene triangle shaped canopy is essential.
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My doctor advised me not to grow old.
