Salvage Project

David Chauvin

This weekend I worked a tree that I got cheap because of it's reverse taper. I could have air layered, but decided to try to create shari to reduce the heavy parts of the upper trunk. I figured this would be good practice material. It still has some carving to do on the jins, as well as more reduction in taper, but that's for later. Well, let me know what you think. Comments, critiques & virtuals are welcomed and appreciated.

Before.

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"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

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David Chauvin

For now.

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"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

Carl_Bergstrom

David,

Impressive transformation. I wish I had the skills to carry out something like that.

The one thing that troubles me about this tree is the long bow-curve in the upper 2/3 of the trunk. I'm not quite sure the best way to fix it, but my off-hand guess would be a counterbalancing foliage mass lower down, in the area marked out by the visual extension of this curve. Does that make any sense?

Best regards,
Old Mister Crow

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In love with trees

David Chauvin

OMC, There's a lot to be bothered about with this one. It's a goofball that probably should have been layered, but what the hell. No pain, no gain. I'm getting a real respect for people like Marc Noelanders and others who carve beautiful shari and jin on garden stock so well that it works with the overall design and does not look gimmicky. I'm not exactly sure what you meant about "counterbalancing foliage mass lower down, in the area marked out by the visual extension of this curve". Maybe you can do a quick sketch. Thanks

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"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

Carl_Bergstrom

David,

I think it's a great way to both refine one's technique and to develop more advanced design skills, and I hope to be able to do something similar myself in the near future.

Maybe my words were unclear because I didn't really know what I was talking about. Artistically, I'm afraid this one is a bit over my head. Here's what I was thinking, and perhaps you or someone else can see how to rescue it, or can show me where I went wrong with my approach.

Our perceptual systems fill in details and complete lines; this is part of what I mean by the visual weight of the composition. As I see it, the bow curve "implies" the following circle:

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In love with trees

David Chauvin

OMC, Well I guess I did understand what you were saying after all. Now how could this flaw be minimized? Is it possible? Or worth the effort? BTW, what would you have done? Air layer?

David

__________________
"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

Carl_Bergstrom

Because of this implied circle, the composition appears off balance to me. (At least, I think this is why - I could easily be wrong.)

How does one fix this?

I had thought that the solution would be to direct the movement of the tree down into that circle. I just tried a series of sketches where the tree moves down into that circle, so that they moves toward its center, or in which the lines of the tree actual redirect back toward the bow curve, challenging it, if you will.

Those didn't work as well I had hoped. So now I'm feeling rather puzzled. Here's the sort of thing that I was envisioning.

I'd love to hear comments. Why doesn't it work as well as I'd hoped, and what could one do to fix it? Was my basic premise (the implied circle) off to begin with? Or is it something else?

(Oh, another note: Forgive me for assuming near infinite bendability of the crown, and thus for turning it into a lower branch. It may not be remotely feasible, but I went ahead and sketched it because I'm quite curious about the general artistic principles operating here.)
All the best,
Carl / OMC

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In love with trees

Carl_Bergstrom

Well, first of all I never would have realized that you could anywhere near as far as you did with this particular piece of material! So I don't know that I really have a better or even alternative suggestion. I actually really like what you did, and would like to figure how to make the tree work as a heavily-carved literati.

All the best,
Carl

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In love with trees

zeb

Very interesting discussion. Thank you for that.

I think the problem is not so much because it's a long bow curve and the canopy flows to the direction as well.
I think the problem is the lower part of the trunk. The trunk has many quite sharp turns in a limited space followed by a long "calm" curve that creates a "floating ellipse" described by OMC.

So, by this thinking I'd assume the tree would be more balanced if it had same kind of curves troughout the trunk. I'll have to test this and report you.


Rgs,
Zeb

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Two men were walking down a road. The one on the left was interested in bonsai. The one on the right had no money either.