Choosing a front.

So we now have a tree with a nicely twisting trunk, lots of branches and foliage that looks like it will be impossible to get back.  Where do we start?  Choosing a front is the best place to start and bearing in mind that our fininshed tree will be no more than 20 cm tall, we must concentrate on the first 15 cm of the trunk and find the face which shows off the best line. 

As you can see from the three pictures there is a definite front, side and back to this tree.  From the side the trunk is two dimensional, you cannot tell it twists or turns at all, there is no depth to the tree, no perspective.  With the back image, the tree clearly moves in three dimensions, forwards and backwards, left/right, up/down,; or for those of you of a scientific bent, in the x, y, and z planes in a 3-D Cartesian geometry. However, from the back, the movement in the x plane, the forward and backward motion is somewhat disconcerting, the tree appears to be rudely sticking its arse out towards the viewer, before disappearing back, returning to create a crown where it would be looking down its nose at us, leaning over towards the viewer.

In the first image we see the first motion is away from us before it twists gracefully up towards us and then away again, before a final motion towards us. If create the crown so that it is coming from the back of the tree towards the viewer, as it fills out with foliage then it will appear to lean towards the viewer (the fabled bowing of the tree), but will do so from further back, so that the apex will be centred above the main z axis of the tree, the vertical.  This will allow us to see all of the movement of the trunk and also create the desired silhouette.  Having the trunk initially move away from us gives us a much better sense of perspective and depth, allowing us into the tree, drawing the eye into the dark recesses rather than brutally telling us to go away and giving us a cold shoulder as it does from behind.

An important step which many people leave out is cleaning.  This should be the first thing to do, clean away all of the flaky bark, the dirt and dead leaves.  Best done with a small brush, vynil or metal is ok just don’t damage the skin.  This isn’t the final cleaning so it doesn’t have to be perfectly clean, but just enough to see the line without distraction. 

The branch placement is also much better from the chosen front, on each of the three main curves we have branches coming off, although one is too thick to be used and will be made into jin.

If you look on the rather interesting image below you can see what I mean, the line of the trunk is shown in blue, the red lines are the vital branches that will be used in the final design, the yellow is the branch which will need to be cut off and turned into jin.

At the moment we are not concerned with the green part of the tree, that will come later, what we need is living branches that go in the right direction, even if they are too long. 99% of the present foliage will be removed.  Drastic pruning is required.

I started by cutting off the major branches half way along to get them out of the way so I could see inside better.  Then branches were selectively shortened or removed until I came to the initial stage.  It is important to be careful when cutting off branches; once it has been cut you can’t glue it back on.  That said, unless you drastically prune back, then it will be impossible to make something from this material. Don’t be afraid to cut, just be sure that what you are cutting is not necessary and in this case, 95% of the initial tree is unnecessary, which leaves little room for mistake once you have got down to the stage shown here…looking like it might just become a bonsai one day!

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