yenling83
Omono
Two things have got me recently thinking a lot about the color of the deadwood on Junipers.
1st Thing-
For the first time, I recently visited the ancient Bristlecone pines in the White Mountains. These are the oldest living things in the world and have amazing beautiful colors in their dead wood-whites, reds, browns, blacks. Lots of variation.
2nd Thing-
I attended Kathy Shaner's exhibit critique at the GSBF convention. One of Kathy's main comments about the display area was that in general she would like to see less extremely bleached white/yellowish wood. When asked about using artificial colors on dead wood she argued that Lime Sulfur is an artificial color. Overall she recommended experimenting-not on your nicest trees with various wood stains you can find in the hard ware store. I don't think she wanted to see as drastic of variations as on the Bristlecone pines, but it seemed she preferred less bleach white in general, with some darker sections where more moister would naturally be found in certain sections of dead wood.
My Opinion:
When I first started bonsai, I loved extreme contrast between the bleached white and red/brown of the live veins. I did not care for any color in the dead wood, I liked the contrast-it was striking and reminded me of life and death, good and evil, and yin and yang.
I am recently starting to get tired of extreme bleach dead wood. It looks too artificial and I see it too often. While the Bristlecone pine's dead wood might be too much-it's beautiful and imitating it could have potential. Realistically ancient juniper dead wood-does not look like Bristlecone pine dead wood, although I ask myself the question: What causes the drastic variations in color w/ Bristlecone pines and would Juniper dead wood ever look like Bristlecone Pine wood eventually? The oldest Juniper is still probably just a kid compared to some of the Bristlecone Pines.
What are your thoughts? Attached is a pic from my trip. A nice pic of a really old juniper can be found on bonsaiboon.com
1st Thing-
For the first time, I recently visited the ancient Bristlecone pines in the White Mountains. These are the oldest living things in the world and have amazing beautiful colors in their dead wood-whites, reds, browns, blacks. Lots of variation.
2nd Thing-
I attended Kathy Shaner's exhibit critique at the GSBF convention. One of Kathy's main comments about the display area was that in general she would like to see less extremely bleached white/yellowish wood. When asked about using artificial colors on dead wood she argued that Lime Sulfur is an artificial color. Overall she recommended experimenting-not on your nicest trees with various wood stains you can find in the hard ware store. I don't think she wanted to see as drastic of variations as on the Bristlecone pines, but it seemed she preferred less bleach white in general, with some darker sections where more moister would naturally be found in certain sections of dead wood.
My Opinion:
When I first started bonsai, I loved extreme contrast between the bleached white and red/brown of the live veins. I did not care for any color in the dead wood, I liked the contrast-it was striking and reminded me of life and death, good and evil, and yin and yang.
I am recently starting to get tired of extreme bleach dead wood. It looks too artificial and I see it too often. While the Bristlecone pine's dead wood might be too much-it's beautiful and imitating it could have potential. Realistically ancient juniper dead wood-does not look like Bristlecone pine dead wood, although I ask myself the question: What causes the drastic variations in color w/ Bristlecone pines and would Juniper dead wood ever look like Bristlecone Pine wood eventually? The oldest Juniper is still probably just a kid compared to some of the Bristlecone Pines.
What are your thoughts? Attached is a pic from my trip. A nice pic of a really old juniper can be found on bonsaiboon.com
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