Simplicity in ikebana

Simplicity in Ikebana

My dear teacher Shoso Shimbo says often,” Keep it simple, keep it simple… so that it will be more effective.”  In ikebana, less and definitely more!  And I used to “trim and trim and trim”- thinking… oh dear there isn’t much there anymore!   But he is right!  Less is more!

I have a very “young” garden and there isn’t much to pick from it.  Often, I found one or two things that I want to bring into the house- and yes, only 1 or 2 things!  Then I realise that the trick is to manipulate and accentuate the strong beautiful parts to make something simple but elegant.  No fuss, No buying extra materials… just one or two pieces, but I must think hard, think hard on what container to use, how to arrange them, where to put the finish work- that will all make a big difference to the end result.

Recycle Ikebana

Ever wonder what happens to those Floral displays after a major exhibition? I don’t know what others do with their but I always keep whatever didn’t rot! Surprisingly, many materials dry well and can be reused and reused in different forms.

Looking a bit off colour? Sprayed paint it!!

Yeh! See those bamboos there? Two of them were black ones from another old arrangement and the other two are the beige ones from hardware store. I need 6 bamboos for this project and I wasn’t going to spend another $80 for new ones- so I bought a bottle of $10 spray paint and give them all a new lift of colour – also gave my display a dramatic look!

Gold Gum Nuts

And how about these Gold Gum Nuts and leaves and branches as centre piece for a special occasion? They fell down form the tree in my garden and I simply picked them up and sprayed them! Stunning!

There are many materials which are very good for this like Pussy Willow, Willow, Dogwood, even Pepper corn. Also Raindeer fern, however, they are very “spiky” when they are dry!

Ikebana of another kind!

Have been making and selling some tsumami kanzashi at a local church craft Market day. Can’t say that I’ve made heaps but great to say that I sold alot to my friends who were kind enough to drop by and kept me company while I have no customer!

Never in my life have I sold things in a
Market before and certainly a very interesting experience! Great! Thinking of doing another on in Nov.

Ikebana Video

I have made a 4min short video to show case the exhibitions of Shoso Shimbo and his students.  Enjoy

Church Flowers 4 Sept 2010

Recently I have been very engaged in experimenting with leaves. Since my garden has a good supply of Mondo grass and Iris, I have been doing a lot of curling and weaving of leaves. Then I saw in a magazine, the Japanese “Florist”, which suggest putting a wire behind so that the leave can be “shaped”. And here is the result of my experiment. The Protea and Arums Lilies are from my garden. Ibonlt bought the big leaves and the flowering Wax. I am not very happy with placement of my Proteas but the 90 degree stems made them very hard to place.

Arranging flowers for church is a very exciting thing to do. You can get the basic concept not only from the different festivals but also from the different colours representing the different time of the church calendar.

Exhibition at Yarra View Nursery Mt Evelyn

Shoso Shimbo and his students (including me) were invited to exhibit at the Yarra ViewNursery y Mt Evelyn.

Though there was a downpour of rain, it has not stopped people from coming! There was quite a crowd to see a half hour of ikebana demonstration by Shoso and me. Then we also have taiko and shamisen performance!

Hi Everyone out there!

Hello World!

This is just so new for me! I don’t normally write blogs- consider I have a Facebook and Website to keep up!

I hope you will enjoy looking and the photos and ramblings of mine here!

Me and my dear teacher, Shoso Shimbo, and with my other dear classmates, will be driving up to Mt Evelyn to the Yarr Valley Nusery for a charity event. We will exhibit our work and give demonstration. Personally, I am abit nervous…..