Hello all,

I can't believe that two weeks have passed already since my last posting. It seems time is accelerating at such a pace that I can hardly keep up, especially heading towards Christmas.

We recently had an interesting theme for class. My student Aurelia Dong brought in four paintings made by her mother, Shijing Zhao, an accomplished artist, who worked with calligraphy brushes.  Some of my senior students and I made an arrangement each referencing one of the paintings. Unfortunately, because of the glass on the frames, the photographs do not show the true beauty of the work. 

Working with such beautiful works of art was an enjoyable and inspirational experience and we are all grateful to Aurelia for making her treasures available to us.

                   Vicky Kalokathis

                                                                                         Lucy Papas

 

Bredenia Raquel

Margaret Wilson

                                                                                                                                                   Emily Karanikolopoulos                       

Lucy Papas













                                                                                                                                                                                   Emily Karanikolopoulos                                                                                                                  

For my lesson with Elizabeth last week, our theme was 'Roses'. I made this arrangement using two glass containers. In the lower bowl I placed red roses in a circle and in the upper decanter I placed stems with leaves up-side-down. I call it the 'Morticia' arrangement.

Last Monday I ran a workshop for our sogetsu group with the theme 'Ikebana for gift giving'. I made six different arrangements, as examples, using a variety of different containers. For the workshop we all used Oasis (florists' foam) in small, ceramic bowls. We tried to create works that would travel well with materials that would last. Below are my six pieces, which passed the 'portability' test because they traveled safely to the workshop and then back home again. 

You can see more photos from the workshop in a slide-show if you click on our Sogetsu link.

I leave you with a couple of miniature arrangements that I enjoyed playing with.

Bye for now,

Emily