COLOURS OF AUTUMN

Last week saw the return to classes for my Torquay and Geelong students at the beginning of Term Two. We are well into autumn and there has been some good rain recently, which means that the gardens are looking fresh and there is not too much heat stress showing in the leaves and flowers. 

 

Anne is a new student and working on the early exercises where the focus is on the principles of the proportions of lines to the vessel and the angles at which they are placed. This ikebana above is a variation in which the principal line, the shin, is placed toward the back and leaning slightly toward the right side of the suiban.

Maree's exercise was to make an ikebana in a tsubo, a round-shaped vase. She created a massed arrangement using Pin-cushion Hakea H. laurina flowers which are contrasted with smaller masses of Acacia and Plumbago P. auriculata flowers. 

The exercise for the senior students was, first, to make a basic upright ikebana using New Zealand Flax leaves; then, second, to re-use that material to make a freestyle ikebana in a different vase provided by one of the other students. The photos below are of the second phase of the exercise.

Tess set her flax low in Ellie's unusual lobe-shaped vessel. The blue flower peeping above the flax is a Butterfly Lobelia.

Maureen created a tall ikebana with flowing lines in a glass vase provided by Tess. The small yellow focal point is made with Chrysanthemum flowers.

Christine used two maroon-coloured flax leaves to create a space for a large autumnal Hydrangea. and repeat the horizontal lines on the vase provided by Maureen.

Helen set her flax in a slanting design in a vessel provided by Christine. Unfortunately the small mass of deep blue Salvia flowers are hard to see against the dark background.

Ellie created a strong horizontal emphasis in her ikebana. This was because of the difficulty in fixing her relatively short flax leaves in the very deep vessel provided by Helen. A tight mass of Chrysanthemum flowers makes a focal point at the mouth of the vessel.

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In the garden...

...this Hydrangea looked positively luminous last week. When I saw it again this week it had started to fade a little so I decided to use it in my ikebana before I lost the chance this season. A little later in the garden I had to do some pruning. A long branch of Mirror bush Coprosma repens, was coming through the neighbour's side fence and shading some plants that needed sun. When I looked at the cut branch in my hand I realised that it had a beautiful line.

 

The pruned branch became a graceful shin line in my horizontal ikebana. I picked the three remaining Hydrangeas on the bush, leaving their stems long. The photograph has a flattening effect, hiding the fact that the branch to the left and the flowers in the middle are coming well forward of the vase. The photograph is uplit by the sun reflecting from the living room floor. This has thrown shadows upward from the flowers and reduced the intensity of colour in the Hydrangea flowers.

The vase is by the Victorian ceramic artist Graeme Wilkie and has a pale pink textured surface.

Greetings from Christopher

30th April 2023