End of the season - Yamadori and workshop in Croatia

This season has been very interesting, lots of things happened, new knowledge and experience have been acquired, my collection of trees is bigger and quite a few trees had made a good step forward with the development. Overall it was a good season.

So as the year unfolds it is also coming to the end. The last days have been quite intense, and more than interesting. For the beginning of the end of the season my collection was completed with a new very interesting spruce (Abies Picea).

11-2011 - Spruce (Abies Picea) - Yamadori

On Friday I joined Janez and Matej on a yamadori trip. It was great, good discussions, beautiful nature, lots of laughter and much too fast walking (I seriously thought about quitting smoking :)). Excellent company has been the main reason that time has gone by a little too fast, but for my consolation a nice larch (Larix Decidua) yamadori joined my collection.

11-2011 - Larch (Larix Decidua) - Yamadori

Saturday and Sunday also passed in a blink. The Croatian bonsai club as a branch of Tora organized a workshop and I am very glad that I had the opportunity to help Tomaz Kovšca in this two-day workshop.

First part of the workshop was theoretical

After the theoretical part of the workshop we started with practical work on the trees. On the first day I helped wiring Željkos spruce, which was later styled by Tomaž and got his first new appearance. On the second day I helped Nikolaj to work on his juniper. Both days ware incredibly fun.

Tomaž Kovšca working on a Pinus Mugo

Željkos Spruce before the workshop

Željkos Spruce after the workshop

Dean working on his nice Pinus Mugo

I will remember this workshop by two things. First, a lot of wiring and secondly by a great group of colleagues from Croatia, a group that has a strong energy, a group full of enthusiasm and I really hope that I have a chance of meeting them again.

Progetto Futuro with Enrico Savini

I spent this weekend in Progetto Futuro school, where I worked and learned as a second-year student for two days under the guidance of Enrico Savini and his assistant Tommaso Triossi. The main theme of this session was Pines and after an interesting theoretical part of the class, we started with the practical part of the school session and worked on our trees.

Theoretical part

The knowledge level of this session was a bit higher than usual so I gathered a lot of new information and practical advice but most of all I realized that when you think you know a little something, you quickly realize that this is so little, almost nothing, that it is such a small fraction of the whole picture….there is truly a lot to learn.

I worked on my Pinus mugo, which has been styled for the first time. At this stage, the tree was designed only to a degree where the primary form is shaped, the first idea of the style with the possibility of some minor changes is done and the development took the health of the tree in consideration as the most important thing.

Pinus Mugo before the styling

Enrico Savini and his "magic hands"

Some branches, which will no longer remain on the tree in the final design stayed as an aid to absorb the energy for the most important branches. The tree is shaped to a level which is safe and good for the health of the tree. In the next development stages the dead wood will be further developed, the structure of the secondary branches, the design will get a more detailed definition of the structure and so on…similar as gathering the knowledge the development will need a lot of additional time.

Pinus Mugo after the first styling

For the end of the post I like to share some pictures of trees from other participants, who are already in more mature stages of development and have transformed remarkable in this school session.

Pinus Mugo before (Nik Rozman)

Pinus Mugo after (Nik Rozman)

Pinus Sylvestris after (Blaž Jemec)

Pinus by Rajko Podgornik Reš before

Pine after (Rajko Podgornik Reš)

It was great....