Ikebana for gift giving. I made this arrangement to give to a friend of mine, who
was celebrating a milestone birthday.
I used Green Goddess lilies, wisteria vine and alstroemeria psittacina leaves. In
the ceramic bowl I used oasis

Hello all,

At a recent class the advanced students were given the exercise from Book 5 - 'Relief Works', where dried, bleached or coloured materials are arranged on some sort of board. Unconventional material may also be used.

The piece, above, is mine. I used two dried strelitzia leaves, which I lightly sprayed with a copper spray to take away their dull beige colour. I don't know the name of the other material but I curved the stems by soaking them in warm water then tying them around a cylinder until they dried and the curve was set. For the board I used a canvas which I sprayed with this charcoal coloured paint.

Vicky Kalokathis
Dried and sprayed agapanthus

Nicole McDonald
Dried strelitzia and agapanthus

Bredenia Raquel
Dried strelitzia nicolai and dried garlic flowers

Lucy Papas
White paper

And below is an example of what NOT to do. I made this Relief Work at a time when my mobility was almost zero. There was a dried branch with squiggly ends in my ikebana room, so I challenged myself to use only that branch. I cut the shapes in graduating sizes and, painstakingly, drilled holes in the canvas, into which I put a drop of glue to attach each stick. This took a considerable amount of time and then there was the waiting time for the glue to set before I could lift the canvas and hang it on the wall.

Looking at my work as it sat on the table, I was quite pleased..........

The work as viewed on the table

Closeup of work on table

....But then I hung it on the wall and my heart sank! Looking at it face on, you see only squiggles. Having lost its depth, it also lost all the interest.

Dull as dishwater!

And the lesson to be learnt is to, always, consider where the work will be placed and from where it will be viewed. We even have a lesson in Book 4 - 'Paying Attention to the Container and to the Place Where the Arrangement will be Put'.

On a more pleasant note, my student, Shaneen Garbutt has recently started on Book 3 and below is her
Ka-bu-wa-ke arrangement.

Sycamore and arum lilies

At our recent Ikebana International meeting we workshoped mizuhiki. This material is made of twisted paper to look like wire. It comes in many colours, including gold and silver and is used as a decorative element in celebratory arrangements.

We had four demonstrators, one of whom was my sister-in-law, Toula. She made a very striking, modern arrangement, below.

For my arrangement, I used a piece of pine that had an interesting stem. It took some work to prepare the stem by removing the superfluous, smaller stems and pine needles along the stems and then cutting short the needles that I kept. I had difficulty finding a suitable position for the mizuhiki because I did not want to take away from the line of the stem. In truth, I prefer the arrangement without the mizuhiki. For more photographs of our meeting please go to II Melbourne.

One more thing- The lovely ladies of the Box Hill Floral Art Group are having an exhibition in conjunction with 2018 Whitehorse Festival. I hope to be mobile enough to go.

Whitehorse Civic Centre

379 Whitehorse Road,

Nunawading

21 October 2018

10 am - 4 pm

I leave you with this spring, wall arrangement. The white lilac tree was a gift from my parents because I have a particular fondness for it. In the tiny village in northern Greece, where I was born and lived till I was eleven, we had a mature, white lilac tree just outside our kitchen. Now, every time I see or smell the lilac, I'm transported back to my childhood.

Bye for now,
Emily