Working on a Scots Pine

I have another project here which is a Scott's Pine. This is a customer's tree and as usual it's got a bit lost. It's in a rather unusual pot because this customer is an American customer and this ceramic pot was made by an American ceramic artist. I don't know the name of the person but I believe he's quite famous and he wanted this tree to remain in this pot. But the tree I don't think is neither here nor there. It's neither literati nor an internal upright. With Scott's Pines because they have thin lanky trunks the best thing to do with them is to make it a literati tree. So if you go back and take an entire picture of the tree you'll see that if it was a literati tree you don't need this bottom barge here. It is completely redundant. So he's got to trust me and I'm going to just make it short, make a short gin. I don't even want to make a long gin. A long gin would not suit this tree and we will just rip it and make a gin from this one. Even this gin coming this way it doesn't do anything. I'll take it off there. Many people ask how do you take decisions so quickly? Well that comes with experience. Knowing what you want to do and how to go about it is all part of experience. The more you do the better you will get at taking quick decisions. So despite the bullet things simply decide fast what you want to do. So let's see what the gin would look like over here. I always find it hard to pose in front of the camera. And because this branch was wired at some stage because it's wired it's got that curly look so when you've wired it and then make gin with it it gets that beautiful spiral effect. Which you can see. I'll refine it. You can understand what I'm trying to tell you. Okay so that's got out of the way. Now I can see there's one glaring mistake. If I bring this down this is a branch. I don't know whether to do this or that. The branches are springing up far too much. I think this branch is like a redundant one. Keep the camera focused and I will see. I think it's this. Let me put some wire on and position it. I think that bag trick might not work in this instance. I'll try it. I want that sort of effect. I've got the bullet. Don't even need a driftwood there. For illiteracy there are too many branches. Anyone who's doing illiteracy will soon realize that the cleaner the lines the more dramatic the lines the better. So this is going to be wired down like that. Let me put a heavy piece of wire up to here because these two bits of wire here I'm going to do two branch prints for using these two. So you've got to think ahead. Always think ahead. I'll take it off with a thicker one. Knowing how much wire to cut again comes with experience. Someone asked me do you leave 10 percent 30 percent or what. Again this can only be a very rough rule of thumb. You can't be hard and fast that it has to be 10 percent. Scott's pines are fairly forgiving. The Japanese white pine tends to be brittle so you have to be a bit careful. The bougainvillea and Scott's pine is also quite brittle. So you can see the effect I've created. I've printed down. You just change the angle you see. Sometimes altering the angle makes a big difference. So we've cleared the line so it's not such a mop head effect now and the rest will just be arranging the branches staggered left right and centre and then we will see what transpires. I think the top is still a very dense mop there. That has to be thinned a bit and we will proceed. I'll wire the main branches first. See there's a choice of two heads here. You see over here it bifurcates there so I could either use this as the leader or this as the leader. If you look at it from the front you can see what I mean. I can either use that as a leader at the back or use this as the leader and bend that back and thin that a bit. It can't be too dense otherwise the nice sparse literati look will be lost. Okay so we've got that far. I thought I'd just show you the first branch on the right that I've wired. You see the rest of the tree is very dense and heavy but the right branch is now light and airy not heavy at all. So this is the effect that we want to get. A very light airy effect just that right branch and then as I work on it you'll see the literati type effect. It has to be very light and delicate looking. The top is very dense at the moment. Let me continue with this literati point. The next step to do is to decide on which branches are redundant because being a literati it needs to have a very sparse look. Even small little branches looking at that I think you got to ask yourself this is dangling down I'll take this one. Okay the other thing is this one here it is a bit confusing there at the back. If you go to the back you will see whether you need it or not. Without it which is a much cleaner line. I don't think I need it because it is confusing to say the least. So that's clean. These are all right. Now I've got to decide whether to use this to bring it this way or to use this and get rid of this. I've decided that this is going to be the apex because this gives a very nice zigzag line. You see it comes this way comes this way then goes back on itself then I can take an elbow out this way. I could have used that back one as the apex as well but I won't because it's leaning too far to the back. The apex should always lean towards me so I'm using this and then I've got to decide whether I need this. If this is clouding the space then I'll take it off. So I will use this and wire to this and see what happens. So let us use the appropriate grade of wire for doing that. A number of people ask me on our videos how do you know what length of wire to use without waste. It's a hard thing to advise. See like this branch is so long I've left about maybe 20-30 percent but once I've cut it the way I wind the wire also has a bearing on whether I waste wire or don't waste wire. So make sure that it spans the two branches you're going to wire and then take it out that way. Once you start doing more bonsai on your own you will be able to judge for yourself what works for you and what doesn't work for you. There are certain things which are non-negotiable like the two branch principle as far as possible stick to that but apart from that just devise wire that looks neat. Okay I've anchored that one now I'm going to wire this. This customer has left the wire on the tree quite long although I've never worried about wire marks on pines because once they grow out it makes the tree look very gnarled and old so it gives character to the branch so that doesn't worry me. So let's wire this pad and then I will go to that. All the pads should be flat even this has to be wired flat to get around to doing that. So let me take it to this branch here. Now straight away I can see that I've got a choice here between these two. If you stand back you will be able to see what I'm trying to create. If I keep this branch this lower branch it's going to be clouding the space that I intend to create. If I use this I won't need this one. Agreed? So I think I would use that because I need more space. The literati concept is a very difficult one. Many people think that just because it has few branches is a very easy tree to create but the artistic effect of literati is exceedingly difficult to understand. A lot of people appreciate it but they don't understand it. Even more difficult to create it. I've seen people especially in the tropics trying to make literati with their tropical trees and except for pine and juniper there are very few species that lend themselves to literati style. Even with the so-called tamarisk I've seen some disasters that don't look right with tamarisk. Although tamarisk does look like a bird it's very difficult to create a literati image with tamarisk. Okay I've got so far now I'm going to I'm not going to show you this because I've just got to wire these flat. I don't want to take up too much video time so I'm going to wire all these flat. We've got to this stage where these lower branches have been done. Those three lower ones. This one's been done. This is London. The crown is done but this still seems very dense and heavy so that back area needs to be thinned out as well. It is very very dense so in fact it is so dense that I can take out the entire bit from there. It would still look all right because that much. Now this is a bit dense that's a bit popping up. I probably need that. I can probably take that up and then flatten these like that and maybe bring that back. Now I'll just wire these two first and see what happens to that. I always say that if you do things in stages it will eventually work itself out. Many people like to try and envisage the end result before they have done even one step of the existing task. We say one step at a time and everything you do is one step at a time. Don't rush it. It works itself out. Talking of life lessons so many people say to me that they learn from that and this is precisely one instance where letting things work themselves out is really important to learn. We talk of bonsai teaching you patience and I really think that bonsai does teach you patience just on this little aspect of wiring. We let things work itself out one step at a time. Don't try and look too far ahead. Okay so patience is not just about waiting for trees to grow. It's also about waiting to see how each step of your design process works itself out rather than rushing it. Let it evolve. Let it evolve and emerge. You'd be surprised how the natural process takes reign. Basically anything that hangs down I'm taking out. Always returning to the front position each time. That gives me my bearings. Now I don't know whether that is getting towards the end result or desired result. I think the one at the back is a bit of a problem. Let me just see if I have tissue against that. Do you think I need that? Probably not. Standing back of course gives you a much better perspective. These hanging branches I might have to deal with. Now it's always a difficult decision for anyone to remove a major branch. To remove all that even it's taking me some guts to remove it but this is a nice elegant tree. We can open that up a little more and that'll be done. Let me just do that. It's only one tiny piece of wire and I will be there. Scott's pines are extremely vigorous. People don't realise that. If you grow it well and feed it well they grow at the rate of knots. The trunks thicken and the branches thicken and of course the wires do bite into the branches so do watch it. Especially in the summer during the growing period they grow very fast, very rapidly. So I've opened it up a little and I think that is all I need to do. That gin is quite nice. We could open up the shower a little more but this is up to the customer to decide. But that is what we call a classic literati and let's see how much we've removed because I've checked all the branches in case you want to see. Have a look. Bring the camera near. This is what we removed from the tree and I would say that is virtually half the tree's foliage that we've removed. So this is classic with a nice line, nice apex and we'll remove that low branch. Literati trees are tall like a Chinese brushstroke painting. So I'm not changing the pot because this pot has a sentimental attachment. I might reposition the angle of planting like I show here. I will position the tree at that angle but I'm not going to do a drastic repot of the tree. There you go. I hope you've enjoyed that. It's such a beautiful tree that I felt I had to complete it by putting some moss on it so that I get a nice image and picture. Moss grows on our drive in all sorts of unlikely places. All you have to do is look for it. I'm just showing the principle. You've got to decorate the entire surface and you can put a bit of akadama here and there. That's all I'm going to get because it's such a nice tree and I have a lovely branch. This is a pot that I made back in 1967 in my great potting days and because I cut that off, let's see if I can use this branch to do a little flower arrangement. What can I do? Because it's like a literati tree, let's give it a literati effect. I don't claim to be a proper Ikebana person. Ikebana. Let's see what I can do with this. Pop it up. A lot of the great masters in Japan are men who do the flower arranging. It's just that the culture is such that some of these arts are practiced mainly by men but in different countries they're practiced by the other sex, you know, women who do it. That's all I need to do to reflect the mood of the tree. Again I need to keep it sparse rather than cluttered. There you go. So that is how I would display this tree. The branch that I cut off I've used all night so far.