MaverickLancer
Mame
Sorry for keeping everyone in suspense. I've been visiting my parents all weekend, and I haven't had much of a chance to get to a keyboard. On the plus side, with then in Gardena, this means that I also spent the weekend at Chikugo-en talking to Gary. I learned a lot and came away with a beautiful Procumbens Nana that I will work on when I have had more practice on the cheap stuff.
There was a lot of great advice given in this forum and i really appreciated everyone's input. At this point in my bonsai journey, I feel that @Eric Group had the best approach. I had never really done any significant wiring and had no idea what its limits really were. And so, I decided to take each one of those five limbs and do something a little different.
First, I tried to dig and find the surface roots... Only to find them about 1/8" below the soil. At that point, I found that the juniper was entirely rootbound since it was growing roots upwards. I did some very basic clean up work (removing dead sections, suckers, etc), but decided to skip any pruning since I was short on time for today.
For the first branch, I wanted to see how sharp of an angle I could bend. It turned out to be a whole lot more than I thought, even for a young juniper. It of course snapped completely off. I then took this as a sign that it would be a great time to see what it's like to make a jin. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of that progression.
For the next branch, I wanted to see how tightly I could spiral the branch (pigtail style as mentioned above). I saw @Smoke 's tutorial on using raffia, and will definitely be trying that with some whips later. This came out much better than I thought it would and established the tree's apex.
The third branch was wired down like a semi-cascade. I had never liked juniper cascades very much, but Gary had a truly inspiring work on display during my visit, so I wanted some experience with it. After wiring the primary and one set of secondary branches, I saw that I was running out of time. I left the rest of the semi-cascade and pad forming for later.
The fourth branch was an attempt to see if I could accentuate the apex spiral with a complementary spiral of jin. I wanted to convey the idea of the tree breaking free of restraint. It too snapped in a few different places.
I didn't have time for the last branch, so I wired it up and moved it in a slight whorl around the tree. I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish - some sense of balance perhaps?
The resulting pictures can be seen here. Viewer discretion advised. Images of bonsai frankensteinian butchery not for the faint of heart.
I didn't bother to slip pot it since I'm not sure the tree will even survive this level of abuse. It lost a lot of foliage in this process. If it does survive, I'll probably finish my practice on the semi-cascade branch and then shorten it to something more sensible. The spiraling jin will also be removed.
All in all, i would consider this experiment a success. Although the tree makes the ugly tree look like a cover model for Sports Illustrated, I did learn quite a lot:
1) I have a better feel for when a bend is too much. There's a tension that you can feel when it's on the verge of breaking.
2) Letting the wood relax a little and bending slowly will give you a better chance of not breaking.
3) I learned the importance of accurately assessing which wire to use.
4) When you set a branch in one position, its not a good idea to bend back and put it into an entirely new one. My first attempt with copper showed that it was UNFORGIVING. I wired the rest of this tree with 3mm aluminum.
5) Breaking a branch is completely okay. Sometimes it actually makes styling easier by narrowing your choices, and gives you an opportunity for jin.
6) Never remove a branch until you are absolutely 100% sure you will never use it. When you wire a tree, the shape changes and suddenly what seemed irrelevant becomes critical.
And lastly... The quality of the material matters. This was a bargain big box bonsai that I got for less than $9. The difference between that and the $35 pre-bonsai from Chikugo-en is one of lightyears.
This really was a fun exercise and it's something I feel like every new bonsai enthusiast should try before working on anything quality.
There was a lot of great advice given in this forum and i really appreciated everyone's input. At this point in my bonsai journey, I feel that @Eric Group had the best approach. I had never really done any significant wiring and had no idea what its limits really were. And so, I decided to take each one of those five limbs and do something a little different.
First, I tried to dig and find the surface roots... Only to find them about 1/8" below the soil. At that point, I found that the juniper was entirely rootbound since it was growing roots upwards. I did some very basic clean up work (removing dead sections, suckers, etc), but decided to skip any pruning since I was short on time for today.
For the first branch, I wanted to see how sharp of an angle I could bend. It turned out to be a whole lot more than I thought, even for a young juniper. It of course snapped completely off. I then took this as a sign that it would be a great time to see what it's like to make a jin. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of that progression.
For the next branch, I wanted to see how tightly I could spiral the branch (pigtail style as mentioned above). I saw @Smoke 's tutorial on using raffia, and will definitely be trying that with some whips later. This came out much better than I thought it would and established the tree's apex.
The third branch was wired down like a semi-cascade. I had never liked juniper cascades very much, but Gary had a truly inspiring work on display during my visit, so I wanted some experience with it. After wiring the primary and one set of secondary branches, I saw that I was running out of time. I left the rest of the semi-cascade and pad forming for later.
The fourth branch was an attempt to see if I could accentuate the apex spiral with a complementary spiral of jin. I wanted to convey the idea of the tree breaking free of restraint. It too snapped in a few different places.
I didn't have time for the last branch, so I wired it up and moved it in a slight whorl around the tree. I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish - some sense of balance perhaps?
The resulting pictures can be seen here. Viewer discretion advised. Images of bonsai frankensteinian butchery not for the faint of heart.
I didn't bother to slip pot it since I'm not sure the tree will even survive this level of abuse. It lost a lot of foliage in this process. If it does survive, I'll probably finish my practice on the semi-cascade branch and then shorten it to something more sensible. The spiraling jin will also be removed.
All in all, i would consider this experiment a success. Although the tree makes the ugly tree look like a cover model for Sports Illustrated, I did learn quite a lot:
1) I have a better feel for when a bend is too much. There's a tension that you can feel when it's on the verge of breaking.
2) Letting the wood relax a little and bending slowly will give you a better chance of not breaking.
3) I learned the importance of accurately assessing which wire to use.
4) When you set a branch in one position, its not a good idea to bend back and put it into an entirely new one. My first attempt with copper showed that it was UNFORGIVING. I wired the rest of this tree with 3mm aluminum.
5) Breaking a branch is completely okay. Sometimes it actually makes styling easier by narrowing your choices, and gives you an opportunity for jin.
6) Never remove a branch until you are absolutely 100% sure you will never use it. When you wire a tree, the shape changes and suddenly what seemed irrelevant becomes critical.
And lastly... The quality of the material matters. This was a bargain big box bonsai that I got for less than $9. The difference between that and the $35 pre-bonsai from Chikugo-en is one of lightyears.
This really was a fun exercise and it's something I feel like every new bonsai enthusiast should try before working on anything quality.
