Page 11 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2015Q2

The Demonstrations

By Christian Vos, Belgium
Photos courtesy Bonsai Association Belgium (BAB)
The headliners Ryan Neil, USA, Salvatore Liporace,
Italy, and Seok Ju Kim, Korea, had the opportunity
to show us their skills and were able to entertain the
visitors on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
The demonstrations were commented both in
English, Dutch and French by Marc De Beule and
Malcolm Hughes. Both are very experienced bonsai
artists.
Demonstrations on Saturday

Ryan Neil: Ryan worked on a very old mugo pine
with a beautiful nebari and trunk. His goal was to
make the tree more compact. In order to do this, he
cut some of the thicker branches and used thinner
and more flexible branches to build up the bonsai.
A bit of work on the deadwood wiring resulted in an
extraordinary pre-bonsai.
As usual, Ryan worked without delay on the bon-
sai, with dedication and motivation, which obviously
entertained the public. During his demonstration,
he provided the visitors with tips and tricks and an-
swered questions from the audience. Similar to the
previous years, he proved himself to be a real artist
and entertainer, but also succeeded in staying humble
all the time.

Salvatore Liporace: Salvatore worked on a Juni-
perus sabina from the mountains. The tree has been
planted in a pot about 3 to 4 years ago and had been
wired before. It is now strong enough to be styled.
Although the tree is only 45 cm high, it took more
than three hours to finalise the wiring. Only one
branch needed wiring of 2 mm thick, all the rest could
be done by wire of 0.6/0.8/1.0/1.2 mm.
The deadwood was cleaned up and the beautiful
trunk with living lines appeared. Water was sprayed
on the branches to keep the branches moist and to
allow to put them into the right position without
damage. Thanks to his many years of experience and
dedication to the art of bonsai, Salvatore managed to
create a magnificent bonsai out of a wild bush. The
final result was outstanding.
Top row; Ryan Neil’s demo tree, before
Seok Ju Kim: The mugo pine on which Seok Ju Kim and after styling.
demonstrated was a huge yamadori. No less than six Second row; Salvatore Liporace’s demo
men were needed to put the tree into the right po- tree, before and after styling.
sition. After cutting off nearly half of the branches, Third and fourth row; Seok Ju Kim’s demo
Seok Ju Kim started to protect the thick branches with tree before styling, Seok Ju Kim applying
black elastic band. For the wiring of it, he used two elastic tape, the mugo pine after styling,
and the special manual winch he uses to
to three 5 mm copper wires. To bend the very thick After the assistant wired the thinner bend heavy branches.
branches (up to 6-7 cm diameter), he used a special branches, Seok Ju Kim positioned the branch-
winch, (see photo on bottom right). With regular in- es and the nearly ‘mission impossible’ to make
terval these branches were bent into the final position a pre-bonsai out of this huge tree became
and fixed with steel wires. At the end, more than ten ‘mission accomplished.’ Something special,
guy-wires kept the branches in position. never seen before by many bonsai lovers.

April/May/June 2015 | BCI | 9