STYLING PINES


After a long and cold winter when only thing I could do with my trees was shoveling snow on them for insulation against freezeng weather, I was very happy when temperatures has risen to some 9°C over the weekend and I could start styling my 2 pines - I couldn´t wait for it as I was enjoying the book by Qingquan Zhao - Literati style penjing over the winter and working out how to do it right in my head.
Here are the results and you can decide for yourselves as to what extent I managed that.
I didn´t want to cut too much nor get rid of too many old needles as I was worried that it might weaken the tree so I am taking it bit by bit and this is really just first rough styling with a lot of room for improvement that will be done over the years.


Yamadori pine after collection from a concrete slab with a compact and extremelly shallow rootball in late spring 2016

Autumn 2016

After first styling 25.2.2017

Yamadori pine 3-trunk after collection with the same story as the one above

Before styling

After

And 2 of them together



PENJING NUMBER 5 - FIRST HARD PRUNING


Today I gently removed dry leaves with my fingers, because they stayed on all of my chinese elms last autumn - I do not know why, as previous year they changed colours and fell down.
I was looking forward to that and to see the branches finally and be able to prune them to get the crowns on their ways.
When the leaves were down, I could see the tangled branches, which is common sight on supermarket "bonsai" trees.
Luckilly the branches grew quite strong throughout the season being just pruned to shape, so I had a lot of them to choose from and at least on 2 left side trees the basic structures have been set after 2 hours of cutting - the right side tree needs to grow some more primary branches yet to look good, and that is what I will focus on this season.


SK:


PENJING ČÍSLO 5 - PRVÉ TVAROVANIE


Dnes som jemne odstránil suché listy prstami, pretože minulú jeseň neopadali ale ostali na všetkých mojích brestoch, aj na tých, čo predchádzajúcu jeseň zmenili farby a opadali.
Tešil som sa na to a tiež že konečne budem vidieť ako vyzerajú štruktúry korún a že ich budem môcť konečne natvarovať a nechať už rásť správnymi smermi.
Keď boli listy dole, ukázali sa typické poprepletané konáre aké vidíme na všetkých supermarketových "bonsajoch".
Našťastie stromčeky rástli silno celú sezónu a bolo z čoho vyberať, tak po 2 hodinách prestrihávania som bol schopný vybrať celkom slušné základy korún na dvoch stromčekoch vľavo. Ten vpravo ešte potrebuje viac primárnych vetiev a na to sa budem zameriavať túto sezónu.

FINALLY SOME ACTION


I started to play with trees over the weekend for the first time this year, when I attended local styling competition organized by Slovakian bonsai association president Juraj Szabó of Bonsai centre Košice.
I had no intention or desire to win - I was fueled by the need to wire something and to start messing with trees again after our long winter that actually haven´t ended yeat as the temperatures are still around zero.
I was happy to find out that the competition will be attended by some people I know from slovakian bonsai forum so I had a chance to meet them personally.
There were 10 contestants including me and all of my rivals did a great job and their finished trees were really great and very inspirational.
Jury consisted of our famous eastern-slovakian bonsai masters Milan Roskoš, Július Kolesár, Juraj Szabó and mayor of Košice-krásna as the judge from the public.
At the end, every tree has got it´s faults addressed by the jurers and everybody could learn something from it.
I went for a very different design for my tree than everyone else as all the others went for informal upright or slanted style.
We had three hours for the work and it was long enough to do the job I think, but I nevertheless felt a little bit of pressure and didn´t think through how to finish the design I came up with.
Thats why I did 3 tops on my 3 branches with a spring like moyogi kind of style finish on them.
That was the biggest fault I did I was told.
Here is the pic after I brought the tree home:

I restyled it today after I realized there is a better way I should have done it.

I don´t think it did much harm to the tree as all of the branchhes are very thin and flexible.

I would love to read some feedback so please don´t hesitate to comment what do you think about the change - is it better or is there a better way to do it? Or should I have kept the original look?

Anyway, as my bonsai eye gets better over time, I hope to make a nice tree from it over the years.

I will plant it in the ground in spring and let it grow.

It was a great event and I hope I will be able to visit the next one too.

SK:

KONEČNE SA NIEČO DEJE

Cez víkend som sa začal prvýkrát v tomto roku opäť hrať so stromčekami keď som sa zúčastnil lokálnej súťaže v tvarovaní organizovanej predsedom Slovenskej bonsajovej asociácie Jurajom Szabóm z Bonsai centrum Košice. Netúžil som po cenách ani víťazstvách – poháňala ma túžba niečo nadrôtovať a opäť sa začať hrať so stromčekami po našej dlhej zime, ktorá ešte ani neskončila, keďže teploty sú stále okolo nuly. S potešením som zistil, že na súťaž prídu aj známe mená zo slovenského fóra a budem mať možnosť sa s nimi stretnúť naživo.

Bolo nás 10 súťažiacich vrátane mňa a všetci moji súperi predviedli skvelú prácu a všetky ich stromčeky boli veľmi inšpiratívne.

Porota pozostávala zo známych východoslovenských bonsajových umelcov Milana Roskoša, Jula Kolesára a Juraja Szaba, ako aj starostu Košice-Krásna ako zástupca laickej verejnosti.

Na konci sa vyjadrili osobne ku každému stromčeku a každý sa mohol niečo naučiť.

Ja som skúsil iný dizajn ako všetci ostatní, ktorí šli po klasickom vzpriamenom štýle.

Mali sme 3 hodinky na vytvorenie bonsaja čo bolo dosť, ale ku koncu som sa aj tak začal trošku plašiť a nedomyslel som ako dokončiť to o čo mi išlo.

Preto som spravil na mojích zvyšných 3 konároxh 3 vrcholy akoby v moyogi štýle.

To bola najväčšia chyba, ktorá mi bola vytknutá.

Na prvom obrázku je strom po tom, čo som ho doniesol domov.

Dnes som ho pretvaroval po tom čo som si uvedomil ako som to mal vlastne urobiť.

Myslím že to stromčeku veľmi nevadilo keďže konáriky sú tenké a flexibilné.

Obrázok 2.

Rád by som počul vaše názory, či to stromčeku prospelo, alebo sa vám páči viac prvá verzia – prípadne sa vám to vôbec nepáči – privítam každý názor J

Každopádne – dúfam že ako sa moje oko bude vyvíjať budem to vedieť lepšie spraviť a raz z toho bude pekný stromček.

Teraz pôjde do zeme na pár rokov a potom uvidím.

Bola to super akcia a dúfam že sa budem môcť zúčastniť aj tej ďalšej.