Colin Lewis Workshop: Collected Mountain Hemlock

Carl_Bergstrom

Hello everyone,

Yesterday at the Pacific Northwest Bonsai Club Association convention, I had a tremendous good fortune to participate in a workshop with Colin Lewis, styling mountain hemlocks theat were collected on Vancouver Island.

The material was excellent, and I drew what was in my opinion a particularly nice tree. Here it is, before we started work.

Attached Images

hemlock_before_small.jpg (65.1 KB, 1031 views)

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Carl_Bergstrom

The tree had one main trunk which then bent along the ground and gave rise to three small whiplike trunks. Colin's idea was to use two of the smaller trunks, and ultimately plant the whole thing on a slab. This is several years down the road, though, since the tree needs time to recover and regain strength after being collected.

Here is Colin's rough sketch:

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colinlewissketch_small.jpg (28.8 KB, 703 views)

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Carl_Bergstrom

One thing that really struck me about Colin was his eye for design. For example, he saw immediately that I needed to take off what I would have chosen for the first branch - a heavy branch pointing to the left, well positioned at the outside of a curve 1/3 of the way up. I was very surprised, but that branch competed with two smaller trunks. And besides, why do a workshop if you don't plan to trust the teacher? So I went with his suggestion, and it worked out wonderfully.

After two hours of wiring, I had the trunk, primary branches, and major secondary branches finished. Colin worked wonders with the branch positions, fashioning a beautiful sweeping crown on the main trunk and dynamic, exciting curves along the two smaller trunks.

And here is what we came up with:

Attached Images

collectedhemlock_after_small.jpg (40.9 KB, 1002 views)

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Carl_Bergstrom

Obviously there is additional detail wiring that I could do, but for the time being I don't want to take any chances of sapping the tree's strength on the critical boughs. I'll hold off for at least a year, I think. Plenty of time for that, given the slow growth of these old mountain hemlocks.

There's also plenty of carving to do down at that base, to get an old, twisted, rotted out look. I'll take those long jin back on the bottom left of the trunk, as well.

All in all, the workshop with Colin it was one of my most enjoyable experiences with bonsai. I was left with a deep respect for his design ability, and also with a great admiration for him as a teacher. He made the workshop enjoyable and educational and productive for all of us. If you ever get a chance to work with him, I recommend it highly.

With my best regards,
Carl

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bonsaial1

Excellent work there! The after photo looks very nice, which means that in real life it's even better. Great start, and keep us updated in the future.

Al

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grampz

This is one great tree...There were so many possibilities for good design in the tree before styling...Colin did an execellent job of seeing a good one...and of course the outcome is proof of that...I also look forward to seeing the progress of this tree in the future...Job well done...

Regards
Behr

TreeBay

This is a really fantastic job of styling!

Five stars!

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Carl_Bergstrom

Thank you for the kind words, everyone.

Colin deserves all the credit on this one. All I did is draw a good number out of the can, listen carefully, and wire fast so that he could do a lot of styling before the workshop ended.

Cheers,
Carl

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Attila

That tree is to die for, Carl,
take good care of it.

One day it will become a masterpiece, hopefully under your hands.

Attila