KSKeith Stanley

Journal archive

Journal

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 139

This holiday inspired arrangement began with with the phalaenopsis orchids that I used last night, I wanted to make another ikebana arrangement with the white one instead. With the white I also wanted to bring in some traditional red and green Christmas colors. The green glass vase is gorgeous, but it’s hard to use. It’s […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 138

Phalaenopsis orchids are some of the most beautiful, delicate flowers around. I had several stems to use today, and I started working with the stems trying to mass them. They look great together in a vase, but a little bit harder to try show their sleek lines and try to have mass at the same […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 137

What do you get when you have no materials to make ikebana? A challenge! I meant to get flowers today, but I had too many other things going on and forgot. So for my arrangement I had to see what I could pull together. I had a nice branch of driftwood that my partner Frederick […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 136

Once again Buddah’s hand is making an appearance, but this time with some added “fingers” in the form of red peppers. Buddha’s hand or fingered citron(Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis )is very fragrant and is used predominantly by the Chinese and Japanese for perfuming rooms and personal items, such as clothing. The fruit may be given […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 135

The rose in this arrangment was the inspiration today, the variety name is “Amnesia” and it’s considered a lavender novelty rose. The outer petals are seemingly gray, and that’s where the other materials come in. A piece of sun bleached date palm and a dried sunflower seed head, both of which have a lovely gray […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 134

Bells of Ireland can be tricky to use, very often they are either straight or curved but they are unique in that they can be easily reshaped to get the shape you desire. I bent two of them and wove them together to form one large circular form, and then repeated that shape again. The […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 133

This was my chance to use the vase I bought a few months ago. It’s unusual shape and color never seemed quite right for an arrangement until today. The pale blue vase and light green fuji chrysanthemums were made for each other, and I added in a few bare Bradford pear branches and some stems […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana -Day 132

The last of the wild pink sweet peas, combined with green fuji mums and an aspidistra leaf in a freestyle arrangement. That combination of light pink and green really does go so well together. It has a lot to do with it being a complimentary color scheme, it’s a high contrast of color bbecuase they […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 131

My practice today was doing a cascading arrangement, and I did practice and practice. Not quite what I wanted, but I kept thinking about what pratice really is. It’s being willing to practice, even when you seem to be getting no where. One of the best books to read about pratice is Mastery: The Keys […]

Read story →

365 Days of Ikebana-Day 130

This isn’t ikebana, they’re simply flowers for Thanksgiving Day. It’s my offering for the holiday table. A day for me to de-stress, relax, give thanks and to just be. I hope for those in the United States celebrating Thanksgiving (and for the rest of the world) you are having a relaxing day with family and […]

Read story →
X