This Scots pine from Rune Kyrdalen placed first in the ‘KoB progressive styling contest’ non-professional category, scoring 19 points of a possible 30. Choosing material collected in Norway in the spring 2006 was somewhat risky for beginning work after only one year recovery.
There were many different possibilities of shaping this tree and the owner has opted for a single trunk form, even though a double trunk form would have been very possible.
The tree has been styled in a somewhat controversial manner. The foliage not precisely placed looking rather messy, the apex is difficult to define , and the jin are not well refined. To me the tree looks a bit artificial at the present moment, but the good thing is that the owner is trying to reflect nature . With more precisely placed foliage and defining one clear apex, this tree could be more ‘conventional’, but one thing is certain this tree has a good future in the hands of the artist.
Marinko Beg
This tree was collected in spring 2006, and put directly into the current pot. I used pure pumice as the growing medium to encourage good drainage and aeration. The tree grew strongly last year and I decided to use it in the competition even if it had only been in a pot for one year. Ideally I would have waited longer before styling it, but I needed a suitable tree for the competition and I chose this one. I chose it because it has old bark and a lot of foliage so it should be possible to present a more or less ‘finished’ image within the given time frame.
In the beginning I considered keeping both trunks to create a sort of leaning/windswept tree, but after some thought I changed my mind about keeping both trunks. The bark on the biggest trunk is very good, but the smaller trunk is not so good and it doesn’t really complement the bigger trunk.
In this image you can see that the curve in the big trunk is convex and the curve in the small trunk is concave and it looks like they create a circle and that does not look very pleasing to me and it would be difficult to correct.
I decided to remove the smallest trunk, and tilt the tree to the left to create a more balanced design. If I had left the tree in the original angle, the bend in the trunk in the upper part of the trunk would have looked strange and unnatural, but with the new angle it looks a bit better and the abrupt bend in the trunk can be partly hidden with foliage.
When I design trees I usually wire one branch at a time and roughly place it where I want it before I go on to the next one. I normally don’t have a precise idea of what the tree should look like when it is ‘finished’ before I start out, I let the design develop as I go along, although I have a rough sketch of the final image in my head.
To make the tree more compact, I cut off the top of the trunk/branch that extended out to the side. By this time I had cut off more than 60 % of the foliage and I decided it was better not to remove more until the tree had regained strength after the shaping. If one cuts off too much foliage from a conifer in one go, the energy production from photosynthesis is slowed down dramatically and it will weaken the tree and slow down growth and eventually it will take longer to create a mature image than if it is done in several steps. Since the growing season is relatively short in Norway, it’s not possible for me to do the same kind of drastic shaping in one go that can be done further south.
Following the removal of the smaller trunk the branches were bent severely downwards with lots of changes in direction. This reflects what one would observe on a tree growing in the Norwegian mountains because of the severe weather conditions there. I have kept the foliage close to the trunk to also reflect this. Some of the twigs have died back after the shaping, but this is not a problem since the foliage is very dense and will need to be thinned out later. For now I want to keep as much greenery as possible until the tree is growing vigorously again. I will thin it out next year.
I have deliberately avoided clearly defined foliage pads to give the tree a more natural appearance. The low jin where the smaller trunk was removed is not in its final form, and I will not do the final shaping until the tree is re-potted in its new position, so I will leave it as is for now.
The final images show that the tree has more foliage than what would be natural for a weather beaten pine like this.
When I look at the final pictures now, I see that the needles are not always arranged upwards and that is a bit distracting and unnatural, but this will be corrected in future refinement. The deadwood has not been shaped properly yet because it is partly hidden in the soil. It will be reduced to only a small stump when the tree is re-potted.
The tree has several good fronts and will eventually be put in a round pot.
I have tried to address some of the ‘critiques’ from the judges in this explanation of my thought processes and decisions during the styling of the tree. I hope you have found it interesting to read the reasoning behind my design choices. This competition has been a very positive learning experience for me because it forces one to actively think through all the decisions that are made during the styling so you can explain it to others, normally I do it more intuitively.
Regarding the photo quality, I admit that I’m not much of a photographer. The final images were taken by a friend of mine. I’ll get him to take all the pics if the competition is held again next year!
Finally I’d like to thank the KoB team for all the work they have put in to this competition, and I really hope they’ll do it again!
Best regards Rune
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