MASTERCLASS #21

 

Hello all,

On Saturday we had the first Masterclass for the year. A couple of days earlier I dropped some food off to my son, who was suffering with a bout of covid. As I was leaving I noticed that his neighbours across the road had been pruning and left the cuttings on the nature strip. One neighbour had cuttings of a conifer much like the book leaf pine. The neighbour next door had quite a number of dried flower spikes of acanthus. Opportunities such as these cannot be ignored. So, I filled up my boot with these materials, abandoning the original plans I had for the class.

I gave each student a large piece of the conifer and one large or two smaller acanthus spikes. They were to select a container and create a structure using only these two materials.Once they were satisfied, they were, then, able to choose a flower from a variety that I had in a bucket.

The arrangement, above, was mine. I had removed a great deal of the foliage to reveal the beauty of the stems, as per the photo, below. I tried using the acanthus spike in  many different ways but settled on it going through the conifer. I did not feel that I needed to add a flower.

Jenny also did a great deal of pruning from a branch which was considerably bigger that than the one in  the photo. With the sharp angle of the acanthus, she created space, into which she placed two  hydrangea flowers.

Vicky chose to feature the interesting stem of her piece, removing any side shoots and placing it in a large, narrow, glass container. She used a small piece of the acanthus at the top of the vase. She decided not to add a flower.

Cym saw the beauty of the inside of the acanthus stem and wanted to feature it. She split the stem and cut it into four, unequal pieces and joined them, horizontally, using a bamboo skewer. She then added a small amount of the conifer foliage, trimmed sharply to complete a very modern arrangement.

Christine used her materials in a naturalistic style. She chose a large, tsubo vase for her large conifer branch and created an arrangement reminiscent of Variation No 4, slantting, with the branch being the Shin and the acanthus the hikai. The ginger flowers are jushi.

Akemi turned her branch up side down over a nageire container, with the acanthus spike through the foliage, outside the container, creating height. In her arrangement the single hydrangea at the back was quite appropriate.

Bye for now,

Emily