How to shape a pine bonsai? A complete guide explained in one article
I. The complete process of bonsai shaping
1. One foundation - comprehensive cultural and artistic quality and the technical foundation of bonsai making.
2. Four stages:
Creation preparation: potted materials and tools, soil, pots, etc.
Conception and design: from creative motivation to the birth of the image of the future complete work. Conception and design follow the principle of "adapting measures to the material." When seeking the "viewing face," note that the requirement of the viewing face is that from the root base to the top of the trunk, its extending posture and development trend can play a decisive role. Next are the left and right branches. During creation, note that the trunk should draw in its belly to form space in front and depth behind: the tip of the trunk leans forward to create a friendly, harmonious feel.
Processing and production: Following the series of bonsai artistic expression techniques, carry out horticultural technical measures such as wiring, pruning and carving to complete the specific processing and production procedures. Trunk first, then branches; branch shaping should proceed from bottom to top, and potting is done last.
Maintenance and refinement: Maintenance is the continuation of tree bonsai shaping and the stage of gradual perfection. A bonsai is a living work of art that can never be truly finished.
II. Creative characteristics of pine bonsai
1. Pine bonsai should be created mainly with expressive techniques of magnificence and masculine beauty.
2. Based on the ecological and physiological characteristics of the pine, it can only use existing branches for wiring and shaping, to express the natural posture of overlapping branch layers.
3. The pine likes sunlight and tolerates drought, so it is suitable to use soil with good drainage and aeration and a shallow purple-clay pot.
III. Timing for transplanting and shaping pine bonsai material
The best time to transplant and pot pine bonsai material: the eighth lunar month to the first ten days of the ninth lunar month, and the first lunar month to the first ten days of the second lunar month.
The best time for pine bonsai shaping: the twelfth lunar month to the first ten days of the second lunar month.
IV. Roots, trunk and branches form the skeleton structure of a bonsai tree
Shaping refers to recombining the skeleton structure of the material's roots, trunk and branches according to the artistic laws of bonsai beauty, so that it becomes a complete, coordinated, smooth-lined, profound living bonsai art work.
The main contents of recombination are: selection and elimination, adjustment, and correction.
1. Trunk treatment
The forms of trees in nature are infinitely varied, mostly because different growing environments prompt different changes in the posture of the tree trunk, so trunk treatment is the key to tree bonsai shaping. Although tree trunks in nature are in a thousand postures, when summed up there are only two basic forms: straight trunk and curved trunk. A curved trunk can be an "S"-shaped deformation treatment, and can also be divided into several bonsai forms, such as slanting-trunk style, curved-trunk style, cascade style, and so on.
Requirements for the tree trunk:
Whether curved or straight, the trunk is required to taper gradually from bottom to top. If the change is fast, a short, stout bonsai can be made; if the change is slow, a "literati tree" bonsai can be made.
Except for straight trunks, the trunk line is required to have natural extension and just-right bending changes.
If the material is a single tree with multiple trunks, in addition to the above two points, attention should also be paid to changes in the height and size of the trunks, and changes in primary and secondary status and in density and gathering-scattering.
Methods for treating the trunk:
Truncation: In tree bonsai material, from the base of the trunk to the tip, everything is constantly changing, such as the thickness of the trunk, its curvature or straightness, the position of branches on the trunk, and the texture and color of the bark. Wherever the upper part of the trunk is thought to lack variation or appear mediocre, cut it off there; if the retained section is thought to be insufficient in height, then for perfect coordination, set the highest-positioned branch upright to replace the tip.
Use simple mechanical means to correct the extending posture of the trunk, making it shorter or making the trunk line more vigorous and vivid. Curvature and straightness are both innate; one only seeks to make the trunk line meet the requirements of bonsai beauty and to give full play to its characteristics, and then it may become a fine work.
In the trunk shaping of small bonsai, appropriate bending is generally applied to express vigor and sinuous curvature.
2. Branch treatment
Branch treatment most concentratedly embodies the specific contents of selection and elimination, adjustment, and correction in bonsai shaping.
(1) Selection and elimination of branches: The issues most closely related to branch selection and elimination include the elimination of branches, the ideal position of the first branch on the trunk, the length of branches, the density of branches, changes in branch pads, the composition of the crown, and the description of the outer contour line of the crown, and so on.
As a general rule, the thickness of a branch should be about 1/4 of the thickness of the trunk at the point where the branch emerges. In a vertical-format work, the length of the branches should be greatly shorter than the height of the trunk; in a horizontal-format work, the length of the branches may exceed the height of the trunk.
The first branch is most ideally located around 1/3 or around 2/3 of the trunk height. Pine bonsai branches should emerge slightly higher to express its style of loftiness and uprightness, but it is not suitable for branches to emerge around 1/2 of the trunk height.
The spacing between the first branch and the branches above it is the greatest, to highlight the main branch. The higher up it develops, the denser the spacing between branches becomes, in order to achieve a full crown, and attention should be paid to preventing the appearance of a "bare neck." Control over branch selection and elimination should be strict at the lower part and lenient at the upper part.
The first branch is the longest branch of the whole tree, and proceeding upward, the branches should gradually become thinner and shorter. This forms the crown as a scalene triangle. In the overall treatment of branches, there are changes in front-back, length, and density, so that the actual outer contour line of the crown should be a free curve with rises and falls, advances and recesses, rhythm, and a very light musical quality.
Branches to be avoided during shaping generally include whorled branches, opposite branches, upright branches, inward-facing branches, closely parallel branches, crossing branches, directly front branches, directly rear branches, trunk-cutting branches, and so on. The methods for treating these branches are, first, to adjust their extending direction, and second, to remove them directly.
(2) Adjustment of branch growth direction. There is up-down adjustment and front-back adjustment.
The growth direction of tree branches in nature varies with tree species, tree age, and growing environment, and when summed up there are roughly the following different forms: upward-extending, horizontally spreading, drooping, and radiating.
The branches of pine and cypress bonsai should use the horizontally spreading and drooping forms, and the angle of horizontal spreading or drooping of branches is generally between 45 and 90 degrees. On the same tree, the angles formed by the branches and the trunk should generally be kept consistent and should not be changed at will. For deciduous trees, it varies with the tree and can be appropriately relaxed, allowing a little more "miscellany."
There is a range for front-back adjustment of branches; generally it is only suitable to make adjustments of no great angle on one plane, in order to achieve the beauty of natural extension and simple elegance in the branches.
(3) Correction of branch extending posture
"Tempering hardness with softness" is the basic requirement for the extending posture of tree branches, meaning that the posture change of a single branch should have line segments of two different natures, hard and soft, existing at the same time. If these line segments of different natures are broken down, they are none other than straight lines and arc lines, as well as the hard angles and soft angles formed by their intersections, and straight lines and arc lines can further be divided into various line segments of different lengths, shortness, thickness, and thinness. We should organize the above line segments of various different natures into one branch, so that under the premise of natural extension and moderate coordination, it develops with slightly irregular variation; this is the ideal posture that meets the requirements of bonsai art.
In branch shaping, one should try to avoid the appearance of simple and monotonously repeated postures such as wave-like, sawtooth-like, straight-line, and arc-line forms.
As the branches develop, branch pads gradually form. The shaping of branch pads should not be too strict or too standardized; it is required to be slightly natural and loose. The size and shape of the pad depend on the branch's own conditions and its mutual relationship with the branch pads above and below, left and right, and it must fit harmoniously and be moderately coordinated. Each branch pad must have one main branch running through it from beginning to end. Large branches may also be allowed to have multiple sub-branches, so as to form a vivid, lively, and realistic posture with branches within branches and pads within pads.
3. Root treatment
Roots are the basis on which a tree depends for survival, and are also an important ornamental part of a bonsai tree, as well as a reflection of the completeness of the work, so they must not be neglected.
Using the two words "root base" to describe the collectivity and collective structure of a tree's roots is very much to the point. The main function of the root base is to support the entire tree firmly, and it also has the function of absorbing and storing nutrients.
An ideal root base must be:
Roots in all directions, and with relatively strong root groups at the left and right sides of the root base, slightly forward and slightly backward, only then does it appear stable and firm.
After the roots extend from the root base, they should have first- and second-order branching, only then do they appear vigorous and aged. Their posture is also required to have variation and smoothness, avoiding taboo roots such as stiff, overlapping, and crossing roots.
The root base should cling tightly to the soil surface, and the extension of the roots should be flat, without uneven heights, only then does it appear powerful.
The root base must rise above the soil surface with soil attached, receiving sunlight, so that the root cortex ages and matches the surface of the trunk bark.
The treatment of roots must also be carried out through means such as selection and elimination, adjustment, and correction, in order to achieve an ideal root base structure.
Because pine bonsai forms differ, the requirements for root distribution also differ, and here great attention is paid to the use of artistic expression techniques such as balance and concealment-revelation.
V. Maintenance and refinement
Maintenance and management are the continuation of tree bonsai shaping and the stage of maintaining and refining the work. It may last as briefly as two or three years, or as long as ten, twenty years or more. Its main contents include soil preparation, fertilizer use, water control, site selection, reshaping and reworking, repotting and soil changing, and pest and disease control, and so on. Among these, reshaping and reworking are directly related to the creation of the work's image, while the other items, from the perspective of the healthy growth of the tree bonsai, promote the gradual perfection of the work.