PINK AND BLUE

  

The Spring weather has been extremely variable lately. A week and a half ago, on a very warm and sunny morning, we were surprised to see...

...an Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) at the mouth of Spring Creek in Torquay.

These photos are a little blurry as they were taken with my phone camera and have been zoomed-in a great deal. Just as we were about to walk on, a group of pre-school children were being escorted by their teachers for an outing to the beach. What excitement this rather unusual spectacle created!

Several days later, on a chilly afternoon, our friends Heather and John took us for a walk through a section of the Anglesea Heath where they had come across a number of endemic native ground orchids. In preparation for our brief expedition I took a sheet of white A4 paper to use as background to photograph these very small flowers. Without a plain background my camera struggles to focus on such small subjects and chooses larger materials beyond them. 

Above is a Small spider orchid, Caladina pava.

Unfortunately the next two are not identified.

The next, below, is a Duck orchid, Caleana major.

This extraordinary flower is new to me. I was utterly amazed when John sent me the photo below, a day or two earlier.

When I looked-up this orchid on Wikipedia, I was surprised again to learn that it is not an endemic plant but is also found on the North Island of New Zealand.

Now to ikebana. 

At the beginning of this week the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana held an online event substituting for our October meeting. The subject set for our workshop, by Aileen Duke, was to "make an ikebana arrangement using 'unconventional (non-botanical) materials' with a focus on transparency". 

The starting point for my ikebana was some clear plastic tubing, which was coiled and somewhat stiff. 

  

I had to find a way to make it more interesting with a looser loop. Thus the two blue, bottle-shaped vases. Then I needed colour and remembered some plastic file covers I had in the home office. The cones, made from the file covers, allowed for a sense of lightness by standing the pink one on its point. I was pleased with the sense of movement generated by both of the bottles being off-centre from their bases. The tension between the bottles and the tubing held everything in position. I was fortunate to have a pot of Bougainvillea, in a closely matched pink, in flower. I enjoyed this exercise because it took me beyond my usual ikebana material choice and caused me to explore something new.

More images from the workshop can be seen through this link, Sogetsu Victoria October on-line workshop.

Greetings from Christopher

31st October 2021