PLENTY OF PINK

The winter flowering plants are a delight to the eye during our current spate of cold and wet days. Unfortunately, the rain has spoilt most of the flowers on the Cootamundra wattle, Acacia baileyana. 

However, the Japanese Flowering Quince, Chaenomeles japonica looks lovely. This beautiful white one was given to me by my ikebana friend Joan. It is quite slow growing in our garden, so I am reluctant to pick any yet.

 

The red variety that I planted at least thirty years ago has spread along the side fence line in a most satisfactory way giving me a supply of flowering branches for winter ikebana.

This fern has also been growing for many years under a large Eucalyptus, which had to be pruned quite hard a couple of years ago. It became burnt over the summer as a result of losing its leafy protective cover. As you can see it has recovered well this year.

I have used the fern and the red Flowering Quince in this ikebana, emphasising the flowing lines and the asymmetry of the design. The irregularly-shaped, celadon-glazed vase is by Graeme Wilkie.

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Photograph copyright: @soul_tradr                                       

On Saturday of last weekend the Melbourne Chapter of Ikebana International was to have a workshop, with Ema Shin as the guest speaker. Unfortunately, because of a sudden Covid lockdown, the workshop had to be cancelled. Ema is a Japanese born and trained artist who works across a variety of media including wood block printing, weaving, embroidery, tapestry and paper making. 

As members of the I.I. Chapter we were encouraged to view Ema's work on-line in preparation for making ikebana in response to her art practice. When I looked at her work I became particularly conscious of the shades of reds, pinks and oranges, as well as the textures of the fabrics she uses. With these characteristics in mind... 

...I suddenly noticed the intensity of the pink in this variegated Bougainvillea in the conservatory.

Here is a close up of a small flower surrounded by vivid pink bracts. Some of the flower heads I used were quite pale, having faded and become papery.

I also needed some bright red and maroon, for the lines I wanted to emphasise. I began the process by crocheting red wool onto a small side stem of a dried branch that I had used previously. This turned out to be very difficult and slow so I changed my method to simply (!) winding the wool around the branch. One and a half hours later I was pleased that I had begun this part of my preparation before the workshop. When the workshop was cancelled I decided to finish my plan rather than waste all that effort.

Here is my finished piece. I had decided that the finished work should still maintain the feel of ikebana. To that end I had determined I should keep most of the dry branch exposed and only emphasise one line with the red wool. The soft fading pinks of the Bougainvillea made a good contrast to the branch and the black ceramic vase.

Others of my colleagues also finished their ikebana and the photos have been posted on the I.I. Melbourne Chapter Instagram account.

Greetings from Christopher

25th July 2021.