Journal archive
August 10, 2011
This arrangement is made using a technique called “hana kubari”, it’s basically a way of using natural materials as the fixture to hold a flower or flowers in place. The small melon is used as the hana kubari to hold the orange zinnia. This melon was a vounteer plant in the garden, and in fact […]
Read story →August 9, 2011
Again I was drawn into manipulating the equisetum, I had vowed to move onto something else this week but the enticement was still there. I tried a different technique of making a “fence” of five stems of tall equisetum, something that I had not tried before. It wasn’t hard to do, but still took a […]
Read story →August 8, 2011
It’s hard to believe that I am on day 22 of my project: a year of daily ikebana arrangements. One of our two banana trees provided me with some inspiration today, I wanted to so something with some leaves to show their surface. I cut two of the reddish banana leaves and shaped them in […]
Read story →August 7, 2011
Tired of waiting for the garden to start blooming again I went to the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market today to purchase some flowers. Using what I’ve grown or collected has been a pretty good feeling, but after days of barely being able to glean enough worth while materials to work with I had to buy […]
Read story →August 6, 2011
This little Polish glass vase was a nice find today at Ruff & Ready . It was half price since this “junque” store is going out of business this month. I’ve found some sweet Japanese ceramics there over the years and I am sad to see it go. The small opening was filled with a […]
Read story →August 5, 2011
My last day with the manipulation of equisetum, and I am ready to move on to something else. It feels much like I am phoning it in today, and that is a terrible feeling. This isn’t an easy project, and I knew that going into it. I’m doing for a reason, and that reason is […]
Read story →August 4, 2011
Continuing my theme from yesterday, a further exploration of manipulating equisetum. This was done later in the day, and started out way too complicated with too many elements. After working on it for a while I decided that “less is more”.
Read story →August 3, 2011
Finally we get some much needed rain in Washington,DC. Our garden is happy today and so am I. The heat and dry conditions have make blooming material scarce in the garden and August still has many days left. One thing I wanted to experiment with was leaf manipulation with the equisetum(horsetail reed) growing here. It […]
Read story →August 2, 2011
My Sogetsu Ikebana class lesson last night was using one material only, gladiolas. I thought the arrangement I did was acceptable although I could only think of the gladiolas as line material. maybe I saw them more as line material becuase there weren’t a lot of open blooms. My sensei suggested that the materials would […]
Read story →August 1, 2011
Into my third week of my 365 Days of Ikebana and so far so good. Tonight I did ikebana using one material, gladiolas, in my Sogetsu Ikebana class. I used two containers, one stacked on top of the other and placed the yellow gladiolas in each of them at different angles. I’d like to do […]
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