SPRING

The 1st of September marked the beginning of spring. As I walked in the Botanic Garden in Melbourne I was delighted to see these ducklings and cygnets.


Because of the desert in the middle of Australia there are many plants and animals that are unique to either the east or west coasts. It was only after european colonisation that  black swans from Western Australia were brought to the eastern side of the continent. 



Our preparations for the exhibition at the Qdos Gallery in Lorne continue. Here I am trimming some branches for a large sculptural piece.


This week in class I asked my advanced students to make an ikebana 'Taking into account the colour of the vase'. Ellie Welkamp used these beautiful tulips from her garden in two plastic vases.


Helen Quarrell floated jasmine flowers in a ceramic vessel with a red glaze. 


The pink and white of the flowers reflected the speckled surface of the vessel.


Returning to my theme of using a small amount of simple materials from my garden I have used 'tea tree' (leptospermum laevigatum) branches for the main stems and white ranunculus in this 'basic slanting arrangement'.


If you click on the highlighted text you will see some wonderful images of quite ancient 'tea trees' that have fabulously twisted trunks leptospermum laevigatum

Greetings from Christopher
7th September 2013

2 comments:

  1. Christopher, Your students are very talented. I love the pink and white arrangement. So simple and elegant. I am so looking forward to seeing pics of your annual exhibit at Qdos using Greame's creations. Always exciting. Best to you and Laurie, Michael

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  2. Dear Michael,
    thank you for your comment. I have passed it on to Helen who created the 'pink and white' arrangement. We have just visited Qdos today and I look forward to posting some images of the kiln during the firing process this weekend.

    best wishes,
    Christopher

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