My next project...

Here is a sketch of my next project, a Tray Landscape I believe... (over the winter in my garage).

A Mount Fuji likeness viewed from a distance with forest grouping, groupings in the foreground comprised of Cryptomeria (Japanese Cedar) and Juniper Procumbens, and forest ground covers of some sort...

Finding the right rock and getting it to look like Fuji could present a real problem for an authentic look...???

Any and all comments welcomed...

Rough sketch I am not an artist...

Chuck

Great idea Bolero, but I'm having trouble with proportion with it all on one piece. A rock that size will leave little room for twenty some trees. I think the way to do this would be to break it up into seperate pieces. Have your trees on the platter and a suiseki rock in the background and some accents of small grasses or such.

These are very difficult to put together. Every factor must be in proportion or it throws everything out of whack. Each of the twenty trees must be proportionate in itself and in proportion to the other nineteen trees and all in accord with the mountain. Gets my brain all fuzzy just thinking about it.

This is my own infatuation. I want to do one of these very much. I have tried several times over the years and although many thought they were pretty neat, I was personally very dissatisfied both with the construction and also the future prospects of the creations.

Both your junies and the cryptomeria will grow very little once planted into the scene. The trees must be prepared for the planting and this may take several years of growing and training before the composition can be assembled. I am into year five with several junies and cryptomeria with the same thing in mind.

At lastly I'd say this is much easier to do with deciduous trees, but if it was easy everyone would be doing it. LOL It's not easy, in fact I'd venture that it's the most difficult to pull off. My own opinion garnered from my own frustrating attempts. Perserverence, determination, and a boatload of patience coupled with your expertise with the trees, I'm still in school on this one, the first three are the easys. Best of luck, take lots of pics so I can see how you do it, Sincerly. Rick

PS, I have dozens of yew (Taxus brevifolia) awaiting collection that are going to be great for planting like this. They are all logging damaged and elk pruned, everything from mame to four footers. I've been scouting and preping these for three yrs. now and many will be collected this season. Help is needed and wanted, no permits required, they're on my land. Come on down!

Well I found a Mt Fuji stone now I have to paint it to resemble, shape is good... size is good.

I'm thinking of buying a stone slab prox20" to 26"W x 14" to 16"D x 1/2"+ thick to build on.

I have a Landscaping Co specializing in Stone nearby so locating slab is no problem, thousands to choose from.

Arriving at final and proper Scale is the big issue and will require some experimenting

I hope to use Cryptomeria or Tasou for trees, you are right 20 may be too many.

I will be posting regularly once I get going on the Mt Fuji project.

Thank you for your comments.

Chuck

PS...Oregon too far or I would take you up on your offer...

Chuck, I have a question. It is planned as a distance view- is the entire view distance or will the trees be more close up(as in, you are standing relatively close to the trees, seeing the mountain in the distance)?

Precarious in Nebraska...The only way to show Mt Fuji, IMO, is a Distance perspective.

My Mt Fuji stone measures 6"W x 4" H x 4" D.

I plan to have a Middle distance perspective for the trees...

Its going to be a real workout to get the Scale right,...

Looking directly on a few feet up from level you will see Trees, Moss and cover then Mt Fuji...
I will have Mt Fuji centered to my slab but all the way to the rear, I want 1 and a 1/2 times the MF width or 9" on each side of MF for scale... so I will use a 24" slab.

I see the scene perfectly in my mind but in reality it will be a lot of experimenting to get it right...

As Rick has implied, it will be a workout...

Chuck

PS: I have Mt Fuji and am picking up my slab tomorrow so I can probably post up sometime tomorrow

Thanks, this will be a chance to learn a lot.

David

PAINT it???????

JimLewis wrote:PAINT it???????

Jim, how else do I get the look of a white capped mountain ???

Remember this is Tray Landscape Bonsai so some freedom of expression is allowed.

Well, there isn't ALWAYS snow on Fuji, and even when there is, it often is not visible from a distant view, and also is not visible when the mountain is in silhouette.  I'm afraid that paint would look like -- well, paint.

But purists would insist that you find a dark stone with a quartz top.

xx

If you really want the snow I would suggest some sort of clear adhesive and a white sand, in my opinion that would convey a much more natural appearance. I like your idea.

What happened to the pics? Why did you zap them?

I was so disappointed with the stone and all that I felt embarressed to have them up here, too amateurish...
so I removed them...

Chuck

New stone, same slab, 2 views, not sure about tree placement yet...



Turned stone 90 degrees left...

Hey no one starts out anything a pro, one has to start somewhere. I really think the sand would yeild a better result, just paint on adhesive and dip in the sand, shake off the rest, like when we were little ones making "sand art". Either way, keep at, or return to later on, after more thaught. Thanks for sharing. -Jacob

IMNSHO the scale of even the finest sand will be too big...

at even a short distance away from real life size snow, you cannot see any of the individual flakes...

snow from any distance beyond arms length (or so) is pretty uniformly white (apart from drift shadows, thin spots, etc)

i wonder if even flour or baking soda/powder is even small enough...

and boy-o-boy, with that size slab and that size mountain, it looks like those will need to be some really really tiny trees...

scale will be tough for this one
(as an aside, check out some model railroad or scale modelers websites/magazines)

I feel ya, Chuck. Biggest penjing lesson for me thus far has been humility. Maybe that's the point...