Post 196 New pots

Over the last week I finished off a number of pots in two glaze firings. There were a number of large commission pots fired and I'll post these first.

   Pot No 133  Oval, teal glaze    440 x 370 x 84

This teal glaze is one I use regularly. It has a little more sheen to it than my regular satin glazes but that will sit well with the type of tree that you would normally place in a pot of this colour.

Pot No 134  Oval, cream glaze    470 x 347 x 87

This one steps up a little in size and with a short axis on about 74% of the long is about where I would normally set the relationship. The objective with this glaze was to get a little of the dapple break but not too much. 
Some time ago on my glazing journey I reached a point of resolving how much glaze to put on a pot for a uniform cover and it came to about 450 grams of dry ingredients per square meter of surface area. So if the glaze is brushed or rolled on the number of coats then becomes academic, unless of course some differentiation in the finish is required which can only be achieved through the application. Finishing one pot like another becomes a challenge of glaze application.

Pot No 135 Oval with internal rim, Antique patina glaze    565 x 425 x 88

Pots 135 and 136 were ordered on the same basis, seeking surface finish replication. I maintain good records of glazes and their formulation, but variation in application is more challenging. These two are big pots at the limit of my kiln space. In fact they have to be placed off square to get them in. The final colouration of the glaze on Pot 135 is entirely in the hands of the applicator, and leaves a very patinated impression. The combination of zinc with nickel as colourants can have a strong and sometimes slightly unpredictable outcome.

Pot No 136  Oval with internal rim,  Off-white iron break glaze  565 x 425 x 88

Pot 136 has a glaze which gives a reddish break through an off-white with a slight olive tone typical of iron coloured glazes in an oxidation environment.

Post 195 Tanuki update

I was doing a little tidy up job on a couple of my Sargent tanukis and thought I'd post them in another update.

This one was started in October 2013 and since the last look if filling out the pads well. It will very soon time to take off all the restraints.

As I have with this one which was the first one I made. The tree has pulled away a little on that first concave bend and I have been working on the right hand branch in particular. If you look at where it was in May 2014 you will see that I have now just about achieved the photoshop design from that earlier post. This has been the last branch to fill out but has done that this growing season. It will get its first 'outing' at a club shohin day in a couple of weeks.

Post 194 Adventures in grafting

One of the easiest trees to graft would have to be trident maple. That's helpful because the species also likes  to seal over wounds and not re-shoot, happy to photosynthesize through the bark. Here is one such case. The tree formed a quite formidable piece of callus over the cut and there's nothing better to graft into. Anticipating this may be the case I struck a couple of cuttings to graft back. Grafting into callus is a treat, incorporation takes no time at all.

This is what it's like once the tape comes off - rock solid and ready for separation. It might not look pretty right now but over a short time that will all change.
 

In January 2014 I chopped a number of Ficus benjamina 'shorty' trees that I'd had forever and was never really happy with the way they had evolved as a result of my neglect over years of working. This one was a fused multi-trunker which refused to re-shoot once chopped, demanding a number of grafts to be set. So in January 2014 it has a great base but it's a little hard to see where it's going and how long it's going to take.

Well the answer of course is that it is a ficus and given water and warmth nothing takes too long if you want to develop a small tree. Here it is 12 months later, about 220mm high. It needed something more at the back so the little black pot is the last of two recent grafts to build some depth at the back. They'll be ready for separation soon and then the plan is to widen the canopy, more to the left than the right and it should be ready for showing by October. 

From the earlier shot you can see that I've rotated the tree anticlockwise to bring the rock more into contention and avoid having it recede away from the viewer. It's a nice piece of water eroded/dissolved limestone - got some beautiful flow channels on it. I'll also slide the tree to the right about 15mm in the pot just to take if off center and bring the rock into the pot space, although I quite like the overhang.Taking a photograph is certainly a useful styling guide, you don't get confused by three dimensions.

In July last year I posted a story about inter species gardenia grafting. There was one recovered stump in a picture in that post that I did two Gardenia radicans grafts onto. At the time it had a nice little healthy tuft of its regular large leafed foliage. 
I got this one going this season around October. The grafted branches are very healthy and have been separated for about a month. The plan is to have the foliage movement down and to the left to offset the trunk inclination. It should make a nice small bonsai.

 In the next shot you can see the business ends of the grafts and that I've left the tape in place to allow further strengthening of the bond before removing it. 

 This is another of my ficus chop group. In October last year I posted about the air-layer I did on this one to take the top off the root over rock base. In that Post I illustrated the 'toothpick' technique for air layering. I'd seen it somewhere, though I'd give it a go and tried it on my celtis yammadori group as well. The net outcome is that it didn't work on the ficus and it didn't work on the celtis. Even when you do a full annular ring stripping, if you leave the slightest connection the layer is unlikely to respond well. With the toothpick technique you leave a lot more than a slight connection and there is no driver for the tree to make new roots there. 
So when I was sure nothing was happening and enough time had passed I reverted to the full annular ring strip and this had the desired result pretty quickly. There's a big learning there for anyone who is thinking of how to layer. Once it had produced roots I separated it  and put it into a larger pot.

Only in the last week did I take it out of that one and put it in a shohin pot. The canopy has filled out nicely and as it fills and extends more it will better obscure the chop transition. The new trunk line has bulked up well and in another year will be even better. Nice job and a good addition to my growing shohin collection.