Which one will give a better impact?

Hi IBC.

If you are going to attend a lecture on bonsai, lets say for 2 hour discussion which one would you prefer? :

1. An actual demo/workshop on tree- wiring, cutting etc.
2. Lecture on the basic styling- Branching, designing from yamadori, using books, virtuals and other visual aides and an existing finish tree.
3. Penjing construction- from the slab construction, proper tree formations, concepts on perspective, rock placement, detailing etc...up to the finish penjing.

If you have some other things that you wanted to hear or see if you will be attending a lecture please state it here too.

thanks!

regards,
jun

I vote for number 2 and 3, brother. I would add though, keep in mind who your audience is with regards to experience level.

I'd much rather learn about design, why and how. No matter where the material came from (Collected or nursery) speaking about why you're choosing certain branches over others would be a big help to me personally.

Good luck with it Jun!!!
I'm sure you'll knock it out of the park.
Have a great week!!!
Sam

I'd say 1 and 3 Jun. I'm a Penjing fan for one, but also I think seeing what your doing on a tree is alot better than books, visual aids etc.
Bus as Sam said it depends what your audience is.

I would take the second and third option over a demo but as Sam has mentioned, it all depends on your audience and their skill level. Personally if I had to learn from a demo, i would have to be right there helping the person giving the demo in order to learn

2

First of all it depends on the level and type of your audience, Jun.
That said, I'd say nr. 2

I'd personally shy away from 1 unless it were a 1 on 1 or very small group session. If option 1 were the choice, I'd hope the instructor moved relatively slowly and verbalized their thought process and explained their actions as best they could.

I'd prefer 2, currently.

Good thread, June. I'll go with # 2. As a matter of fact I have done a lecture including virts. Had some good feedback on it. I would improve that lecture by integrating photograps of trees and then creat virtuals thereof. Works very well with a projector, one needs to be able to adapt the light in the room.
Thinking of lecture topics I like to hear about refinement, grafting, rootwork, aesthetics, successful and less successful design, design solutions, before and after picture of trees "reengineering" those trees, display (!).It would also be nice to talk about bonsai styles and have a potter lectured about container suitability from his point of view. Just some thoughts.

Best,
Dorothy

There is no substitute for hands on experience, so my preference would be a demo that involves the audience, but I have done it all three ways, depending upon the audience, the time allowed, and the location.
I am not going to try a demo in a 30-minute program for the Garden Circle in Mrs. Jones living room.
BUT, at a bonsai society meeting with about 90 minutes, I think all talk gets old.

Billy

Hm.. I would not prefer nr 1. If the audience is actually doing bonsai themselves, I would opt for the hidden nr 4: Discuss a tree of each person in the audience, and give styling/care advice, and perhaps show on 2 ot 3 trees what you mean with proper wire, thinning, wiring down.

Thank Good people!

Number two then. In some lecture I attended on, I quite find 1 not so helpful either, and if it took more than 1 hour most audience lost interest...unless they are also working on their own trees.

The audience maybe, a group of mixed people with mixed level.

bringing of pictures of before (raw material), and during formation, and ( or actual finish tree) would also help too I think, and explaining the process how it got there will be interesting as well.

regards,
jun

As Sam said, it all depends on you audience, but something I've never seen discussed in-depth in a lecture/demo are the artistic principles of bonsai. You see a lot of discussion on styling and technique though. I think that most bonsai artists could use more understanding on the artistic side of our hobby, and having seen your work on here, I think you might be a very good person to teach this. The reason I say might is because I know a few very artistically gifted people who can see what needs to be done in their mind, but they can't explain why. Their artistic vision is good, but they can't explain it to others who don't have that talent.

I think this would be a very good lecture topic for those experienced in styling and technique. I would attend a lecture of this sort.

Stan Kengai wrote:As Sam said, it all depends on you audience, but something I've never seen discussed in-depth in a lecture/demo are the artistic principles of bonsai. You see a lot of discussion on styling and technique though. I think that most bonsai artists could use more understanding on the artistic side of our hobby, and having seen your work on here, I think you might be a very good person to teach this. The reason I say might is because I know a few very artistically gifted people who can see what needs to be done in their mind, but they can't explain why. Their artistic vision is good, but they can't explain it to others who don't have that talent.

I think this would be a very good lecture topic for those experienced in styling and technique. I would attend a lecture of this sort.

Thank you for the suggestion and specially for the kind words Stan!

Everything did go quite well.
Exactly just as you said, I'll share what happened in the lecture.


regards,
jun

Hi Jun

Very much dependent on the audience as suggested.

1 - 2 would be a good idea, askin for audience participation. Why cut this? Why place this Branch? Etc

They may feel like they have helpe style/design the trees future, rather than a full on Demo
=)

I got a call tonight from the officer and founding member of the club, Saying his appreciation.
He said after my little lecture they got lot of new members from the audience I had. So I'll guess I fair well in my first public lecture. and thank you IBC for your help. I am not into public exposure...but they forced me to...hehehe.

Here's what happened.
I was advice two day before the supposed demo, they asked me to prepare for a demo workshop and not a lecture...but I felt during the demos I attended to before that something is lacking. That is why I asked from your opinions here, I thought I am the only one feeling uncomfortable with the typical workshop and demo.
After I got your your opinions here in IBC...
I prepared a module of discussion for Intermediate to advance audience because I thought I'll be expecting only few members, maybe 10 to 12 club members within that range of level...but I also prepared a back up module for beginner level. Just in case..
Few minutes before I started I saw only 7 seats prepared for around 40 people being occupied by mostly club members. but still I started the lecture anyway. I am still in the introduction part when I noticed That more and more people are coming in, and before I knew it I got more than 80 audience with eyes and ears lessening to me. So I asked the club officer in charge for the level of my growing number of audience, he told me mostly beginners. So I switched to my back up module.
My assessment to my audience- 40 percent curious folks, 40% beginners, 10% intermediate and 10% advance.

This is what I did and prepared:

Materials- Six trees of various levels 1- raw Yamadori, 2- Tree material with new shoots, 3- tree ready for wiring, 4- wired tree (here is saved lot of time and energy), 5- Finished tree from the on going exhibition, 6- Tree in transformation stage

Visual Aides; pictures of typical bonsai (cookie cutter types), Lots of international winning unconventional natural looking trees , Pictures of trees in nature...etc.
Tropical trees vs Non tropical trees.

Pictures of bonsai designs eg. Formal upright, slanting bonsai, clump and raft bonsai, forest bonsai, literati etc...

I prepared three Chapters for the Discussion. I'll post it here later.


regards,
jun

The outline of the lecture

Intro to bonsai:
Yamadori to finish tree- stages of bonsai life from the raw material to display quality bonsai, to transformation stage
Tropical trees vs cold climate trees
Tips on buying raw stocks and finish trees, what to look for, and how not to get duped by dealers.
Bonsai tools and proper use


Chapter 1
Bonsai styles:
Formal upright, informal, cascade, semi cascade, literati/bunjin, clump, forest, raft, winswept....etc
The principles and influence from nature of these designs



Chapter 2
Parts of bonsai:
Nebari, trunk, branches and twigs, foliage
What is a good nebari/base and Ways to create good nebari,
Different types of trunks, how to read trunk movement and to use it as design foundation and how will it suit bonsai styles,
Branch formation, proper wiring, use of guy wires and clip and grow, ways to thicken branches, ramification
Foliage maintenance, ways to reduce leaf size


Chapter 3
Principles of Good bonsai (Credit to Robert Steven and Lo MinHsuan and John Naka)
1. Balance
2. Movement and Rhytm
3. Emphasis
4. Simplicity
5. Contrast
6. Proportion
7. Space
8. Unity

Chapter three is where the bulk of the discussion was, The Artistic side of bonsai were also discussed in Chapter 3, but most questions the audience had were in Chapter 2.

Other topics that were discussed during the question and answer discussion:

Soil medium, Fertilizer, watering, pest , sun exposure and how long trees can last inside , Criteria for judging and what attracts judges in the elimination, etc..


regards,
jun