Hello all,

Here in Melbourne we've been experiencing some seriously cold weather and, although materials in my garden are not as plentiful, there are still the camellias, hellebores, jonquils, clivias, and one very prolific prunus mume (Japanese flowering apricot). And, of course, the calla lilies and green goddess lilies as well as the japonicas are starting to flower. So, all in all, I should have enough to keep me going until spring.

And the vegetable patch can sometimes provide material like this brilliantly coloured chard.

Sadly, my Garrya Eliptica is on its way out but I managed to get a couple more arrangements before the catkins all blow away. 

With white japonica in self made container

Wall arrangement with camelias

A birds' eye view of an arrangement I made using what's left of the strelitzia nicolai. With it I used some cotoneaster berries and a white carnation.

In this vertical arrangement I used a palm frond, from which I removed all but these few leaves, the points of which I caught in the opposite side to create a loose intertwining effect. I made sure the calla lily buds do not touch the palm leaves.

For class a couple of weeks ago, I set the task of making a freestyle arrangement in a suiban without a Kenzan. I instructed the students to make their structure on the bench, outside of the container so that it would be self-balancing, without the need to rest against the sides of the container. I'm including some of our work here.

Lucy Papas
Monstera Deliciosa and strelitzia reginae

Emily Karanikolopoulos
Pine and calla lilies

Janette Fonda
Japonica and Green Goddess lily

Helen Novic
Camelia branches and amaranth

                                                                             

Emily Karanikolopoulos

Siberian dogwood and anthurium

Until next time,
Emily

Hello all,

Privetstvuyu moih russkih chitatelei! (I welcome all my Russian readers). When I checked the stats of my blog recently, I discovered, to my delight, that there are quite a few readers from Russia and I wanted to acknowledge them but did not know how. At a recent NGV luncheon I found myself seated at a table with a lovely Russian family, who, very kindly, wrote the above phrase for me. Thank you Svetlana, Kate and Sacha.

And now to Ikebana. I came across an agave plant in an industrial site and went and asked if I could cut some. Barry, the owner referred to it as a weed and, not only gave me permission to cut as much as I wanted, but brought out a knife and cut it for me. Agave is one of my favourite materials and I'm very grateful to Barry so the next two arrangements I dedicate to him.

There has been a lot of ikebana since my last post. In our previous class I had set the theme for the advanced students 'What cannot be expressed by nature' i.e. Using only man-made materials. This is one of the exercises that will be in the new text book and provided an interesting challenge. I was very pleased with the quality of work by all the students.

Helen Novic

 

Janette Fonda

Bredenia Raquel

Vicky Kalokathis

Lucy Papas was quite prolific and made the three structures above.

This is one of mine

For Elizabeth's class, our theme was 'Mass, Line and Colour' and I made the two arrangements below.

We also had our chapter meeting and workshop last Saturday, which was run by Christopher James. The theme was 'Collaborative exercise. Table top size structure then to connect with two or more members to create a larger work.'

Lucy and I worked together. Continuing with my experimentation with bamboo, I used it again in this exercise. Lucy used dowels and connected them with small dowels to create a very impressive structure, which she calls 'New York skyline'. Please visit the Victorian Chapter website for more photographs.

Lucy Papas

Emily Karanikolopoulos

Joined together and with the addition of flax to create one structure.

I'd like to leave you with this next arrangement, in which I used another favourite material - Garrya Eliptica together with camelias.

Bye for now,

Emily