REPORT FROM THE WORKSHOP WITH HARRY

Great 2 and a half days with Harry Harrington in Byster, Sady nad Torysou, the home of Mimo´s penjing heaven :) Here are some photos from the event made by me and other participants. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot of tricks as well. I cannot present you with perfect "before and after" shots because Harry is different than many other bonsai teachers who wants to show their skill first and do not care that much if the trees survive. Harry takes the health of trees into consideration in the first place, therefore everyone left the workshop with the tree that still needs some work and has a little "tail" of foliage to be cut later - just to make sure the trees survive. The main focus was on carving the deadwood and we prefered to learn that more, rather then just focus on styling itself. Anyways, everybody seemed to leave happy so I have a very good feeling after the weekend and I am happy I followed my initial idea of organizing an event with Harry Harrington.


Group photo without Mr. Milan Miko who left a while earlier

Prepping the gear

Julo Kolesár showing some of his trees in Bonsai Slovakia book to Harry

Harry signing his book to Fero and Karol who ordered their copies

Tree brought by František Mikuš

Fero did a great job preparing the tree for styling and deadwood refining as instructed by Harry

Final pic - the foliage on the right side of the tree will be cut in later years and the deadwood refined as explained by Harry after it is gone

Happy guys - I can still hear Harry repeating the question for Fero - "Can I have it?" :D

Tree number 2 - the most complicated one during the workshop according to Harry - brought by Peter Vitéz - Pinus Watereri

Peter and Harry liking what they did - main branch was brought over the base, deadwood carved by Harry and Peter was shown exactly how he should proceed refining it more in the future. You really need to see these things live to understand how it´s done. Lots of foliage still left on the tree for the health of it and as an insurance policy in the case that any of the styled branches would die.

Tree number 3 - brought by Karol Kozák - Pinus sylvestris

Pic after styling will be added later as I didn´t take one in all the hassle. The whole top is still on the tree anyway to be cut bit by bit in coming years.

Miloš Trpák brought this interesting Mugo pine.

Harry explaining movement and "themes" in bonsai styling.

Carving little jins

Happy Miloš :D ...

... who nearly left without the "after" pic and we had to follow him and make it in the car park placed on the bin. Few branches to go later again. Health of the tree is a priority.

My hawthorn was perfect for Harry to show us some deciduous tree carving techniques and staining the crevices in the deadwood and hollows with black ink. For surface deadwood the lime sulphur with cigarette ash was used randomly to create different shades of grey.

With my dad. Harry seemed to really enjoy the company of my parents :)

and my mum who was the head of our catering crew - big thanx to both of them!

The best material - without the shadow of a doubt - was brought by Raťo Hošák. Juniper collected 10 years ago left Harry speechless. So he started bargaining right away with Rasťo - "I will give you 20 euro for it" ... and later on "30?" :D After the styling ideas and some thinning, Rasťo was presented with lots of carving tasks preparing the deadwood for carving that took him the whole 2 days. We learned a lot talking about carving on this tree and after Harry carved the thickest branch that is gonna be the main feature from the front, Rasťo was left with the instructions and an example of how to continue refining the deadwood on remaining branches over the next years - and since he did such a great job of preparing the deadwood for Harry according to step by step instructions, I believe he can manage to finish the rest of it easily.

Mr. Milan Miko, owner of our local pub brought this pinus sylvestris that was great material for a literati style tree. Unfortunatelly he left a bit early and we weren´t able to take an "after" photo.

Big thanx goes to him for making his legendary goulash soup with venison for the participants on saturday. It was just amazing and everybody seemed to love it, includig Harry.

 

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And last but not least - Karol Klema and his little itoigawa juniper. Karol was praised by Harry for his wiring skills.

After the styling, there were 2 different preferences for the front of the tree, as the tree looked pretty good from the front and the back alike. Harry´s preferred front:

Everybody else´s preferred front :D

Myself and Harry at the local pub after the first day´s hard work.

Thank you goes to everyone who participated and helped me to make this a really wonderfull event - Harry himself for his patience in explaining and answering tons of our questions, and for simply being such a cool guy, Julo Kolesár for helping me with organization and finances, Milan Miko for great goulash soup, my parents for catering and support, and each and every participant who attended.