April
2005. Here is the same tree the following Spring. To give you
an idea of its size, at this stage the stump was 9"/22cm
wide and 14" tall.
As
the tree was showing plenty of new Spring growth already and
had successfully made it through its first winter in a container,
I decided to invest some time removing the rotten insides of
the largely hollow trunk by carving out all of the soft, pulpy
rotten wood and applying some wood hardener to everything that
remained.
.
And
so having cleaned out the rotten wood from the centre of the
tree, I also 'roughed out' the chopping points with a heavy
duty carving bit. Notice how each of the trunks has had taper
carved into it, this taper would be added to over the years
by growing out the new shoots that had already appeared.
The
centre of the tree was by this time completely hollow and large
enough to fit my hand inside.
September
2005. The tree had been allowed to grow freely all Summer. As
can be seen, a combination of good soil and heavy feeding produced
some very strong growth.
My
main priority during that period had been to develop the thickness
of the new trunk extensions (or trunk lines). Branches would
be developed later.
From
the onset I had had a design for this tree in my mind; this
virtual design drawn in 2005 shows the bonsai I wanted to create.
Rather than treat the stump as a single bonsai and grow one
large mass of foliage, I wanted to create an abstract group
of trees (meaning that the group would not be 'natural-looking')
on top of a twisted and tortured 'landscape'; with the landscape
being the stump itself. This way the focus would be on the natural
hollows, the deadwood and the carving.
Bearing
in mind the virtual design I was working towards, I discussed
with Vic Harris at Erin Pottery about building an abstract,
un-natural pot to go with this unnatural-looking tree. I asked
Vic to build something reminiscent of the artist HR Giger. Giger
is well-known for his wild bio-mechanics imagery (the mixture
of mechanics and organic material) and most famously for designing
the Aliens and Aliens film scenery.
March
2006; the tree was planted into its new pot and pruned back
hard. Referring to my virtual design you can see that by this
point I had removed everything except the 5 'trunks' that were
required for my proposed final image.
With
the basic trunklines now established, I decided to spend the
next couple of years concentrating on thickening the trunks
with the use of sacrifice branches and starting the process
of building the branch structure.
During
the growing seasons of 2006 and 2007 several long sacrifice
shoots were grown from each of the five trunks to help thicken
each of the them. Each of these sacrifice shoots eventually
reached approx a metre in length before being removed.
August
2007: The bonsai has taken several major leaps forward; 18 months
after the previous image was taken and I have just removed the
sacrifice shoots and rewired the branches.
During
the Winter of 2006 I had also gone back over my initial carving
and further refined my work. The differences in the carved areas
are subtle but bring a little more delicacy to the overall design.
For
the following years I intend to continue improving the branch
structure while thickening some of the trunks with the use of
further sacrifice branches. The height of the tree is now 19"/48cm
This
image shows how I have 'carved taper' into the stump that the
largest tree grows from; for further images of this bonsai from
a variety of angles please see this animation
or You
Tube Video>
