A good arrangement?

MACH5

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Thanks Mach5, really appreciate your thoughts, I am starting to agree, and I don't want to try and be different just for the sake of being different. I thought I had too many collected Larch but I am realizing that one key to good group plantings is a lot of trees to choose from.

There are certain rules that are based in how we perceive the world that just can't be avoided ie. a straight line will never be as interesting as one that meanders. I think your time (and creativity) may be better spent in looking into unique ways to compose a few trees together. Now that's more interesting than two trees in a pot!
 

0soyoung

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There are certain rules that are based in how we perceive the world that just can't be avoided ie. a straight line will never be as interesting as one that meanders. I think your time (and creativity) may be better spent in looking into unique ways to compose a few trees together. Now that's more interesting than two trees in a pot!
Having wasted a lot of time learning this lesson, I did note that a gifted few are able to break all these 'rules' successfully. Nick Lenz was one.

Geriatric-bean-pole-Lenz.jpg


I suspect you know of this bonsai, @mattspiniken, and maybe had replicating it in mind :rolleyes:. I tried with a sickly blue spruce that had a branch from the base playing the role of the daughter. I had fun and learned a lot trying. But alas, it went into the dumpster a couple of months ago (should have named it Yorick :D, but it never got good enough to qualify for naming).
 

MACH5

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Well I stand corrected. As soon as you say one thing someone else shows the opposite can be done. And that's the beauty of art. Great piece by Mr. Lenz!
 

Waltron

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In Lentz book, there are several instances where he makes a planting whether singular, double, multiple whatever, then he says "the artist got bored with this composition" and he does changes to it, some dramatic, some not so much. The before image is certainly acceptable to the reader, the after image is also very pleasing.. what im getting at is as an artist, sometime you need to throw down some bones to evaluate it, and you can decide if you like it or not and change it however much you want. I think people need to think about this aspect more.
 
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I never thought about this before but I think the reason that the Lenz trees works so well is that it almost represents one tree because of the proximity of the trunks at the base. Imagine this or any two tree group with trees seperate from each other, no matter what you have "uniform" spacing. The third tree is needed to bring that asymmetry in spacing.
 

MACH5

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I never thought about this before but I think the reason that the Lenz trees works so well is that it almost represents one tree because of the proximity of the trunks at the base. Imagine this or any two tree group with trees seperate from each other, no matter what you have "uniform" spacing. The third tree is needed to bring that asymmetry in spacing.


Agree. This is more akin to a twin trunk than a two tree arrangement.
 
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