While I've been focusing on the subject of the thread, someone has been laying down a thick layer of hubris. I have my own layers of hubris to add:
POST ONE:
The secret of Bonsai ------- shhh
Seed in colander ------> ground grow ----------> trunk and 6 branches
Dig up when trunk is x
Place in over sized container and refine.
Cost very, very little.
You don't need a seed in a colander. You can container grow seeds into bonsai. I'm not sure where the "6 branches" thing comes in.
However, if you want to grow a bonsai from a seed, you're going to be greatly disappointed. You should plant many seeds. Then winnow your supply each year looking for those trees that fall within your vision for bonsai, or, lacking a specific vision of a tree, keep the trees that show potential in a variety of areas.
Don't wait until you dig up your tree to refine it. I would say more, but you're leaving out a mountain of information. I cannot go into everything you have left out.
Here's the catch --------- The Design part.
You got the "catch" correct. Bonsai is about the design. Develop a vision for your tree. Follow that vision over the many years it will take to develop your tree to fit your vision.
Get some art classes, learn how to translate what you see in nature into a drawing.
BULL
SHIT
You don't need to sign up for art classes. Art can help you understand proportion, scale, illusion, but you don't need to sit down with a pencil/pen/paint art teacher and frustrate yourself learning landscape painting when all you wanted to do was grow a pretty little tree.
Trace image with 9B pencil from computer screen or print and trace.
What image? You wrote that I need to take art classes to learn how to translate what I see into a drawing, and now I'm using a very specific pencil to trace what I just learned how to draw after I've gotten it onto a computer screen? You're confusing me. You're confusing everyone.
Appreciate what you discover.
What I discover is I'm paying for art classes and I can't draw shit. Tomorrow the teacher says we're going to be drawing nude models. That'll be fun. But I still can't draw shit.
Learn to make your own pots. Design.
NO
FUCK
NO
There are very talented, very respected, world-renown bonsai artists who couldn't throw a pot unless they picked it up first.
Why do I need to design pots? Who wants to look at a Bill Butler pot? I sure as hell don't. I'd rather look at the design of my tree and find a pot that fits the design. A pot someone else has already designed and made. Byron Myrick, for example. I've got plenty of his pots. They're awesome. I would have to quit bonsai for a few years, and photography, and glass work, and my family, to learn how to BEGIN to be a potter. My wife would be pissed.
Gold-plated bullshit.
You've got me taking drawing and pottery classes. Before I have even one acceptable pot, I'm going to make a few dozen shitty ones first.
COST FACTOR: EXPENSIVE
You guys are taking a very simple situation and making it difficult and expensive, Sad.
I want to learn bonsai and you think I need to take art classes and pottery classes first. Who's paying for these classes?
POST TWO:
Try and remember that the practice of Bonsai is for -
This introduction tells me that we're going to get more definitive statements. I love definitive statements.
[1] Inspiration -------------- as in ideas towards an Art form - Painting Sculpture. Poetry ................
[2] Peace of mind ------------ extension of mental and physical health
Just might be the one thing I agree with.
It is not about winning competitions, trophies and pretending you are an Artist.
Ahhhh... The eternal battle of defining art and artists by how much recognition they seek or receive. Can someone be an artist if all they do is produce bonsai with the express purpose of winning competitions and trophies?
Your answer is clear. Not only is it clear, but you took the time to INSULT people who do this. "...pretending you are an Artist." What an arrogant joke.
(Some of you may have noticed that the further I go, the more pissed off I'm getting. Sure, but this is good stuff, like a box of Chips A-Hubris cookies. I can't stop reaching in to get the next morsel.)
Like Tai Chi ------- can be used for battle -------- but it is for health.
I agree with this. However, in between the things that make sense, you decided to insult people. I don't think you're finding the inner peace you seek.
"Om shanti shanti shanti.... Om shanti shanti shanti... Fake artists are winning competitions and pretending to be artists... Om shanti shanti shanti..."
Try again.
The Books have all the information and a visit to a master's nursery will explain any 3d problems.
No. You cannot get all the information you need from books. The gap in your education cannot be filled by visiting a master's nursery to explain the 3D problems. You need help from practicing artists (yes, even the ones who win competitions and trophies). You need... (oh, but if I told you everything you're omitting, we'd be here all day)
Take hand written notes ------- think it out. Check out Mr. Valavanis , Mr. Rosade.........................Take some art classes.
Yes...... yes.... yes... NO
*****You will waste a lot of money and be unable to regain it.***********
If I'm taking drawing and pottery classses, I will.
Have watched this when the Ceramics boat came into town.
Good Day
Anthony
* This is a hobby help each other ------------- or direct them to a club.
Or an art class?
POST THREE:
A tip from a painter ---------
Rats. I was hoping you'd begin this one with another definitive statement. Rather, this post begins with much more humility. It's a tip. I like tips. I love tips. I knew a mohel who worked for tips.
If you can learn to write with a pen / pencil, you can draw.
If you can draw, the mind can be trained to retain visual information,
not details, but large shapes ----- masses.
If you sit and draw a tree or pieces of a tree.
Sit 3 days to a week later and re-draw what you drew previously.
See what you retained in memory.
Hmmm.... I like this. Memorization through writing/drawing is an effective tool in learning. I have no idea what this has to do with bonsai, however.
If you cannot draw a tree, I say you should draw triangles and sticks. You can develop the similar sense of proportion/scale/illusion you would get with a more detailed illustration. Just draw general shapes.
If you can master these simple exercises, then you can create your own trees.
What the heaping pile of crap are you laying down on these people? A piece of paper is not a tree. A pen is not a pruning shear. Drawing is not directed growth.
Placing into them what you believe to be the most important features, be it branches, leaf mass or trunk or roots or ....................
No. Not if we're creating trees by first drawing shapes on paper and using those skills to create trees in the grossly incomplete manner you've introduced.
You will derive much from the ability to draw.
It also shows how to wire, chew on it.....................................
I think you've been chewing on live wires.
There is nothing you have written here that is going to keep a tree alive, grow branches where you want them, shape a branch, pot a tree, and so forth.
Good Day
Anthony
Here is an image built from drawn observation of Pine trees.
Hope to have in say 10 years....
(image redacted)
Hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.
I'm not usually so confrontational. Not in person, not on the Internet. But your posts are arrogant, insulting, are not pointing anyone in the right direction, and much of it is just wrong. I can forgive bad directions and wrong information. But coupled with arrogance and insults? No. Sorry.
2017-10-12_05-43-22
