A friend of ours, Angie, gave us a large number of place mats in different colours, suggesting that we might use them in ikebana. Well, I thought it was a great idea for our Masterclass. I gave each student two place mats together with 3 other, plant materials. They were to select their own container.
I made the arrangement at the top of this post using place mats, spent agapanthus and nandina domestica nana.
Lei, having finished early and having some materials left over, made a second arrangement, below.
Bredenia had two branches of cotoneaster berries, from which she, too, stripped the leaves. She, then, placed them in a stainless steel trough. She cut up the place mat and rested it on the branch. She added two, spent agapanthus flowers to the back and the two gerberas at the front.
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| Examples of the place mats |
During the class I stripped one of the placemats as an example for the students and, after the class, I thought I'd use it in an arrangement, below.
Lei cut out the centre of one of her place mats and rested it on a trimmed monstera leaf bringing two gerberas through the hole of the place mat, behind the leaf.
Vicky stripped the leaves from the Siberian Dogwood branch (Cornus Siberia alba) and used all of her allocated materials in a rather large container with a small opening.
Cymbie used the two place mats but only one of her NZ flax and one of her Gerberas. The unusual container is made of resin and, I suspect its original use was as a candle holder.
She, too, finished early and had a leaf and flower left over. She made a second arrangement by stripping the flax leaf and placing it and the gerbera in a container in the shape of rings. This arrangement addresses the exercise 'Paying Attention to the Shape of the Container.
Akemi cut up one of her place mats in a very intricate design of triangles. She stripped the leaves from the weeping willow and created curved lines, which then, created spaces. She placed her two, spent agapanthus behind the place mat and the two gerberas at the front.
Lucy' tall arrangement began with a pine branch (pinus radiata), which took some doing to secure in the correct angle in the tall vase. She then added the place mats and the two hydrangeas in between the two mats.
I'd like to make two points here. Firstly that, when using an unconventional material, it should be the main focus of the arrangement and not something to be added on like 'decoration', to quote Kawana sensei.
And secondly, I've observed over the years that, when we have the opportunity to make a second arrangement, after our main exercise is done, the arrangement is often better than the first. I believe this is because the pressure to perform is off, our minds are open and we are able to take more risks.
Oh, one more thing - I'm very proud of the work my students produced.
Bye for now,
Emily
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