Howdy all!
Sorry I have not been contributing much as of late. Been too busy doing bonsai. This is a project that I started at the GR show. I will copy the info that I posted in the Guy Guidry thread.
"Great job to Guy and a mighty challenging piece for a convention demo. Folks sometimes forget that these guys have only a few hours. "
I now know what you mean!!! At the Michigan All State Show I did my first two demos. The first was a simultanious juniper demo (much smaller material than what was shown above). We had Dean Bull, Bob Goddard and myself all style similar junipers and see how different the results were. I barely got mine finished in the time alloted.
Then my second demo was a landscape that was supposed to be completed in 1 1/2 hours. Now this one I really bit off more than I could chew
I had planned the placement of trees and rocks pretty well before I showed up but had not styled any of the trees. I ended up setting a rock and some tie wires with fast dry epoxy the morning before the show. I had everything held in place with a quick clamp. Well the clamp fell off on the way to the show and ripped off the tie wires (thankfully the rock stayed put). Fortunetly I had put in a layer of hardware cloth (wire mesh with 1/2 inch pattern) in the bottom of the pot. This allowed all the tie wires I needed (except for the three that fell off the rock). Since the tie wires fell off the rock I had to come up with something else cause this was were I wanted my #1 tree. I ended up just running some wires up through the drainage holes, not sure why I wanted to use epoxy in the first place.
I had some other problems as well but to make a long story short I only ended up getting my 1st and my distant tree into the landscape at the show. I was able to teach all the techniques such as forced perspective, trunk to height ratios and proper moss application (thanks for the article Al [I hope my memory has served me right, if not my appologies to the author]).
I totally understand time contraints now. And will be more prepaired for my next demonstration. I received wonderful responses to my demo though, everyone was very understanding and said they thought it was better that I took my time and made everyone understand that you cannot rush these types of things and that I explained everthing very well. My wife said that many people went and purchased small trees durring my demo. I took that as a good sign that I instilled some confidence in some newbies! Yeah!
The rock is a type of lava rock that I get from my local pet store. The trees are procumbins junipers and hinoki cypress (the dead one is a hinoki too). The groundcover is thyme, irish moss (I think that is the name, some do not like cause it is invasive, I keep in check by pulling it out when it spreads too much) and regular moss.
The "river" does not taper enough in the back of the pot (now that I see it in 2D). Will have to change that eventually. The large hinoki on the left is leaning into the composition and covering the distant mountain and should be straightened. Please let me know what you think good or bad. I am here to learn!!!
Newt