A Detailed Guide to the Clever Use of Bonsai Design Renderings
A landscape design rendering is a predicted picture of how a tree blank will look when it is fully formed.
The author has seen that bonsai enthusiasts abroad often carry out a rational analysis of their own raw material, then draw by hand or composite on a computer, and according to the characteristics of the tree shape and the tree's movement tendency make corresponding adjustments, producing several or even a dozen renderings, and finally, based on the best rendering, carry out directed cultivation and working.
Personally, I think that anyone practicing the art of bonsai needs to master the drawing of renderings. The author himself often draws his own tree stumps, and over several years has gained something from it, which I share with everyone.
First, analyze the tree material. For the tree blank that will be worked and shaped in the future, you must observe it from all sides and choose the best side, the one that gives the greatest play to the material's strengths and exposes its weaknesses the least. Most tree blanks collected in the mountains have this or that unsatisfactory aspect, which requires certain trimming before the initial blank is planted in soil. For deciduous trees it is easier, but for pines and cypresses, once a cut is wrong it is very regrettable, especially for some rare and hard-to-come-by material. So at this point, draw the concept in your mind as a simple sketch, and when there are friends to exchange ideas with, face the drawing, focus on the raw material, discuss the results, and make the trimming of the raw blank as ideal as possible.
Second, maintain according to the drawing. After the raw blank has been cultivated for a year and survives, and when the buds and branch points have emerged in place, purposefully and directionally cultivate the needed branch pads. While corresponding to the drawing, the cultivator should understand in their heart the front-to-back order of the branches on the design rendering as well as the spatial relationships. A picture is two-dimensional space, while the art of bonsai is three-dimensional space. As far as possible, when drawing, do shading treatment to pull apart the tree's spatial relationships, and the elements of primary and secondary, interweaving, and front and back; you can draw arrows at the corresponding positions and mark explanatory text, so that whether it is yourself or others, picking up the drawing makes everything clear at a glance.
Third, take fewer detours. The first type is that quite a few bonsai enthusiasts, because at the time it was difficult to choose and judge the raw material and there was no clear direction in their mind, often end up redoing the work from scratch several years later. The second type is beginners, who collect or spend money to buy any material they see, and several years later, not to mention the money spent, end up with a pile of wasted stumps and time consumed for nothing. Although it is said that learning takes time and money to buy experience, personally I think the intermediate steps can be reduced. The author has several ways to raise his own understanding, and one of them is drawing renderings. Through drawing in large quantities, you come to know the strengths and weaknesses of the raw material itself, what makes a bonsai beautiful or not, and the difference between the mediocre and the refined.
Finally, combined with the sketch, design the final display rendering. Since display requires the coordination of a pot and a stand, this gives bonsai enthusiasts a certain awareness and room for thought in improving and using appropriate pots and stands. The various temperaments of the tree itself, such as towering, open and spacious, majestic and rugged, refined and elegant, or plain and simple, will be greatly weakened in the beauty and artistic appeal of the work if the pot and stand chosen are inappropriate. In addition, besides the pot and stand, there should also be some accessories, such as hanging scrolls and viewing stones, so that in the combination of objects the natural beauty and the beauty of artistic conception of the bonsai are brought out.
Reprinted from Bonsai China
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