Lisa's ikebana hands-on

Lisa is a talented floral designer (western). She's coming to the class to try out ikebana. She brought her own container. So I gave her materials to work with--Ilex berry orange (mini persimmons) and Fuji mums. The middle one was her original arrangement. She beautifully placed mums and berries. Unfortunately, from ikebana point of view, mums and berries are in the same value. So, I asked her which one, mums or berries, are more important to her. It's hard to decide, because both are beautiful. Instead, I showed her 2 scenarios. If she want to show mums, she needed to shorten the berry branches (as in top photo). If she want to emphasize berries, she need to shorten the mums. (bottom photo)

Serena's arrangement

Theme: Vertical Composition (Book3 lesson1)
Materials: Dogwood, Oak leave, Fuji mums

A beautiful vertical arrangement shows the fall color. The placement of the container was originally placed side way. I re-positioned the container so it also shows the narrow width to accentuate the vertical lines.

Mazezashi in nageire style

Mazezashi (まぜざし）

(1) Sandy

(2) Ping

Sandy did a good job in expressing fall using mazezashi technique. The colors are beautiful. What I did here was to loosen up the branches so the air is easy to move in and out.

ikebana study 10/8/11

Persimmons

Happen to see persimmons at Mayesh Wholesale Florist. Though the temperature in Phoenix still reaches to 103F (about 39C) today, it's fall in the rest of the country. Bought a bunch, did 3 arrangements.