Learning the Ancient Art of Bonsai - in 1 Day

Get everyone, I'm deserted and today we're going to dive in and learn about the mysterious timeless art of

bonsai

, so I'm really excited about today's video because it's something I've always been curious about and know nothing about. I came here a week and a half ago because I was looking for a signature tree for my garden and what was going through my mind the whole time I was looking around is that this is art like this, it's so creative and so admirable. how long it takes and how beautiful the result is, but also how close to nature the art form becomes, so I'm very excited today.

I have a guide here in Jeff, the artist himself, that today we are in his art studio. Jeff has been very kind. close his shop for a day so we can do this, go check out chojuro's signature trees on Instagram. You also have a website that sells hard goods internationally, so if you are interested in the pots, the tools, the cable, everything you need. Make the

bonsai

trees and we can get most of it anyway. Also, if you're local and want a guided hand like the one we're getting today, you can join a class they teach here every month. -In the experience and you leave with your own bonsai tree, that's right, we provide everything and you will leave with the tree, which is yours to take home with a wealth of knowledge, so my introduction to bonsai that looks in Karate Kid, where mr.

Miyagi is trimming the bonsai tree, that was my first experience seeing bonsai and hearing about it, so let's go from the beginning, what is bonsai? Well, we are probably talking about the word itself, bonsai, bonsai is a Japanese term with two words and it simply means plant in a tray, okay, two words born within, so it is a very literal translation, but in what has been become the definition of an art form, now the art form includes living material which is plants for the most part, but there is also moss, rocks and all that, things that seem natural, but we should take a step further back, but the 11th century is where they believe the Chinese began working on a similar art form known as Penjing, when the Emperor was the people at the top end of the culture who sat and thought.

I would like to see my homeland, you know, in the same way that we would long for a photograph of where we monks were at that time, running around, digging up little plants and creating these dioramas of said places and carrying them with us. they gave them to their Emperor and it's like we hung a picture on the wall of what the Japanese did when this art form got there, they actually put them in different styles, now those styles are based on the way the trees They grow in nature, the representation of a mature tree and a natural element, so when you find a tree or grow a tree that you want to work on, you take that specimen and combine it with a style, you can't make an abstract bonsai, they all they are based on the very genre in nature I don't have an eye Jeff yeah you haven't met me ed we always have students like I could show you some pretty abstract about when this art form came to Japan the main thing that happened is what they I would like focus on a single tree, the plot is as much a part of that art form as the plan, absolutely remember the pause of the bonsai plant, it is not just a pot for a plant, it actually harmonizes the whole, you lose this and you lose the full vision of that.

You're absolutely right, so it's amazing. What are other things that people probably don't understand? We will be wrong. One of the catastrophic ones is based on the Karate Kid himself. Oh, okay, that's about education. It is often shown where the bonsai are kept. indoors, so in Japan it's not uncommon to present the trees indoors, for example, for a tea ceremony, for whatever, for short periods of time, but somehow that translates to the Western world To think that bonsais grow indoors, what they need is to feel the change in temperature and heat. of the day, the cool of the night and we have developed to live in the static world of climate control, everything has a temperature all the time, trees don't really like it the best they can do is observe, so when does your phone work? be watered you must learn to know it and that is why look to see how dry it is think about the weather how hot it has been how hot it is going to be you have to learn to observe the tree and that is a great reason to get into bonsai to get a little closer to the natural world simply through observation simple observation okay, everyone, throughout all your conceptions about thorns, either way, this is an extreme sport, people, we're getting cheeky, we're starting with this and we're going to go home with a bonsai you have a grown one yeah these could become can we bring that just for kind of a show before before oh my gosh it looks completely different let's just make that it make?

Okay, so what we're trying to do is think that the bonsai is designed for the tree, so I'm just going to cut it randomly and shape it into whatever shape we want. The first thing you should think about when starting a bonsai is that there is a front entrance, so clearly this is the front part of the tree, if we looked at it this way most of the interesting parts would disappear. Let me turn it 90 degrees, that's interesting, ah, more interesting, so our first job is to work from the bottom. I want We go over the trunk and we want to clean it up like we talked about before, so we have all these crazy branches and we're going to remove some of the butter, some we're going to incorporate some of them into our design, let's start from the bottom and We're going to work from the top so that everyone exercises.

That balance of positive and negative space. These long branches are great at the bottom and we will shorten them as we work towards the APS. I know this is not a race, but it seems like you're winning, but I'm winning, like I said. I'm reckless. I like how immediately different this is. I feel like I'm sculpting, you know, gardening, which is really cool. Right, what do you say to people who say it's cruel to treat him? How do people decide? What I would say is that they are probably the most pampered plants on the planet. There are caregivers who take care of every need they have.

It already looks so phenomenally different. Great, it really works. One of the important parts of the bonsai tools is the wire, so I won't wind it too tight, so once I apply this, I can allow you to make some decisions about what we are talking about here. What's happening? Yeah, so you wrapped this loosely and it's right in the corner. Yeah, you can see it goes from the root ball all the way up, so I'm going to put this back on your plate. Now you can try to find a way. You want to kill this tree, but this is where my impatience will buy me and it didn't take much effort, but I must say it's easy to get lost there.

I can see how people get absolutely soaked in the terminal, anyone can do this. As you can see, I want to say that you have done a fantastic job, if I can do it, yes, I like it, I like it a lot. Joe liked it too. It's so pretty, just one piece we're missing, the fancy thing Joss can pick out. One is the tricky part about drinking hot: how to make the right choice. Sometimes they are underage like these and sometimes kids rip them off like chops, so I wonder if they are rounded. I like it, let's work with them.

Okay, great, let's take it. Take a look at this, there are two sets of holes, these two big ones are drain holes, these two small ones are what they call cable holes, so I'm going to cut a couple of small squares to especially cover those larger drain holes and then we just fold them. Clemmie bonsai wire is fun like duct tape. Do anything with it, then I'll go to the bottom of the pot and push this U shaped piece of wire through this, it'll wrap around the root ball and tie up the actual root. ball in the pump yeah it looks like there's a lot of diet in there to fit so we're going to have to cut this down you're right Joe so I'm going to take my root cutters in here and this looks pretty harsh but I'm going to go straight to house here and I know that I'm going to have to at least remove a lot of the actual root ball, something a little bit more than we need, but I kind of wanted it that way.

Now that I have a route choice, it's going to loosen up the whole root ball a little bit, so I'm being very careful to maintain that structural integrity, which is great for David that we were talking about at the beginning when we were just looking at the trees. and discussing things it's the potted tree and it really makes a big difference visually they come together sideways in the pot once the pot you know, I'm just turning them here we are, we've got it in a pot looking pretty good pretty damn good looking amazing, I want more, you want more, how do I do, I'm going to get you more, yeah, where I like to place it, it's like you see how there's an exposed area of ​​that wall that I like not just the trunk line right around the root ball is where I would like to place pieces of moss and I use a three to five thousand sort of slag as a dressing pebble, so between the slag and the loss, let that be the final look.

Would you consider this a good start? I'm brilliant, I started, it's fun, it's interesting, it's like a very contrasting art form. There is a lot of fragility but a lot of resistance and arrogance. It's about beauty but also about flaws. It is the representation of a tree in its shape. natural element in the forest when a storm comes and tears branches off the tree, there is no gardener there pruning them, right? We're trying to tell that story of a tree like that, for example, it's been through some really tough times, very tough years where it's almost dead, yeah, and it was chosen to live as a bonsai like there's a lot of art there to tell a story. history, so when you look at it you think, oh my God, that tree has had such a hard life, but the beauty is that it was chosen to live, you know? has found a way to live and I think that's probably eye-opening for a lot of us in the modern world, a lot of people don't really understand simple things about the way plants grow and I think understanding what a plant needs and how the plant works Sun and where it travels from here to there is something that is just realigning us where we should be in the relationship with ourselves and the world, anything that does that right now is probably a benefit to society and bones as you know, it's just one of the There are many things that can push us in the right direction and there it is.

I have my own bonsai and as I said when I first came here and learned a little more about bonsai, it really seemed like an art form to me and I'm really excited to have shared that with you today. I really hope you enjoyed it and please blow Jeff's mind and go to his Instagram page and follow him, but while you're there, you're going to look at the photos because these things are absolutely beautiful, they're sculptures. which is art, it's really impressive and a lot of time and work goes into it and I can't thank you enough for inviting us here today and sharing this whole art form with us.

I hope you enjoyed this video. It was a blast making it, thank you so much for watching while you're here, of course make sure to subscribe to my channel for more fun with artistic creativity and all that good stuff so other people don't know what I'm doing. give it a like so other people can see this video and go watch some more videos on the channel there, that's all for now and until next time see you later.