Here I will post some of my progressions, styling steps, visual notes and pictures about bonsai.
The last weeks have been a bit busy because of some news involving a new working space I´ll be moving soon. Last week I finally found the time to restyle a Goyomatsu that was waiting in a corner since some days. It has been recently purchased, after decades spent in the collection of a bonsai centre without proper care or restyling. Branches have grown upwards and the canopy got too compact. The interesting aspects of this bonsai in my opinion are the nebari, the mature taper and the old bark. The problems to solve are a boring trunk line in the upper part, left uncovered from the branches grown upwards once again, the too compact canopy that has lost form and character, and the size ( the tree is one meter tall), that makes this tree a bit difficult to handle.
In future I´ll surely proceed forward in the restyling, evolving from the actual classical restored shape. Since the wood is extremely fragile I´ll let the tree firstly restore from the first restyling and then dare a bit more with the design.
The tree before the intervention…
bending the sashi-eda downwards, not all-at-once because of the consistence of the wood. I didn´t use Rafia or tape, not to ruin the bark, but I had to listen quite carefully to the small cracks while pulling the wire down.
The jin has been burned to fix the position and get an older patina on the deadwood. I´ll leave the wire for a couple of weeks to feel safer the position will keep. In that lapse of time Jin fluid will be used repeatedly.
I found some photos in a box, with quercus restylings from the nineties ( in this case I guess 97 / 98). The trees are now somewhere else, and I´m not updated about their actual form. Here is how, for them, the bonsai path has begun..
Hereunder a quercus pubescens, the pot is 60 cm wide…
Herefollowing another quercus pubescens. The pot is 70 cm wide.
Part of the quercus series… the pot is 48 cm wide. It was june, the tree has been defoliated before styling and then wired. It´s a way to accellerate growth and canopy maturation process.
another quercus, its nebari is huge!!! Compare it with the 60 cm wide pot and You´ll understand some of my backaches at the time..
Hereabove a tree in a 50 centimeters pot. I didn´t find other pictures of it, and the tree found a new home, somewhen..
Hereunder a quercus in a 60 centimeters pot. It´s the only picture, and was sometime ago, sorry…
