Tuesday, June 11, 2013

IS IT SUMMER YET?

It has been a very weird spring and summer this year hear in the midwest. With cold weather hanging on, and all kinds of storms and tornados nearby these past few weeks.
 It looks like its finally starting to warm up and stabilize a bit.
I wanted to post a few pics of a bonsai that I have recently worked on. 
This one is a common garden juniper that was originally from a nursery.
It was actually given to me about six years ago by the bonsai curator at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. 
It was one of the ugly trees that were not going to be good.
After a few years of trying to style it I think I finally got it to start to look like something nice.
It still need to be wired and the foliage refined. Should be another two or three years to be show quality.
The last picture is from 2010 after a styling session.
It is in the literati or bunjin style.

2010
 The next pics are of a norway maple which I had posted without leaves last year and someone asked about how it would look in the summer.

And a few accent plants.




I also would like to share,
 One of the Masters that I trained with some years back, passed away a few weeks ago.
 Master Kenny Tsai. 
He was the eldest son of Grandmaster John Tsai.
His great kung fu skill will forever inspire all those whom he trained with.
Iron Palm was his specialty.

I remember after class at his school we would drink oolong tea and eat wasabi coated peanuts.