Filtering by Category: ikebana

My Ikebana: Bunched Dogwood

Added on January 6, 2014 by the ikebana shop.

This was my last ikebana arrangement for 2013.

Normally, I use dogwood branches for the beautiful lines that they create. This time, I challenged myself to do something different. I looked at the bundled up dogwood branches in my hands and thought that bunched together, they looked pretty too!

I chose a flower container with a solid vertical surface and matched that with the thickest parts of the dogwood branches.

To further augment the colour contrast between the red branches and the black container, I added some green oregonia. This makes the arrangement more cohesive.

As it was, the arrangement was calm and tranquil...but too calm! It was static; so I added long branches diagonally across to sort of "pinch" the arrangement. This added some movement.

Here is the whole arrangement.

...and here is another view.

I hope you like it. --Miyako

My Ikebana: Curled Dogwood

Added on December 9, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

As we get closer to the holiday season, I thought I'd point my ikebana towards the season's colours. I used mainly red dogwood and holly (ilex) branches.

The container I chose was a bright red-orange one with an interesting elongated C-shape.

I curled three of the red dogwood branches to match the shape of the container.

Did you notice that the holly branch was not coming out of the mouth of the container? Holly could last for quite a bit even without water; so I merely placed it on the outside. Sometimes, working with material without the restriction of having to put it in water is a pleasure!

I wanted to highlight the container's shape so I used only a minimum of plant material.

Here is the whole arrangement.

I hope you like it. --Miyako

Ikebana From Chile

Added on December 3, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

In the past year or so, we have had frequent contact with an ikebanista from Chile. Her name is Ana Luisa Quiñones and she holds a 4th Grade Teacher's Diploma in the Sogetsu School. She is also an orthoptist in Santiago, Chile. Our correspondence started when she purchased some flower containers from us online. Since then she has been sharing many things about ikebana in Chile.

The materials she uses are all very exotic to us. Also, makes us very envious! :-)

In this one below, she uses Chilean palm leaves that she hand-wove into a net. The huge white flower is a King White protea cynaroides and the fluffy material is lichen from Patagonia. The arrangement was her contribution to the Ikebana International Exhibit in Santiago last June, 2012, which focused on the Chilean palm.

More Chilean palm! Very creative use of the palm tree seed pod.

This creation uses vellon patagonico--unspun sheep's wool from Patagonia...still raw and delicate.

Here is a simple one with big hydrangea and some horsetail branches. The flower container is familiar! ;-)

...and this one with small roses and young bamboo leaves. The bamboo provide a light and gentle space for the roses, which almost feel like butterflies fluttering about! The containers look familiar too, by the way! ;-)

Apart from ikebana, Ana Luisa likes to work in the kitchen too. ...and she likes matcha! Aren't the cakes mouth-watering? :-)

Last but not least, she sends us a photo of a familiar figure--our hand-made owl. She calls him the "sympathetic owl". It stays in her clinic and makes her young patients happy!

Thank you very much, Ana Luisa for sharing your ikebana adventures with us!

All photos courtesy of Ana Luisa Quiñones. Used with permission.

My Ikebana: A Fruity Arrangement

Added on November 18, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Bob, the husband of our friend and ikebana student, Patti, dropped by the shop one day bearing gifts of branches. He said it was a kind of dogwood but it had fruits hanging on them!

It is called "yamaboushi" in Japanese. A little research told us it is called the Kousa dogwood. The fruit is actually edible and is supposed to be sweet when ripe...but I didn't take a bite! :-) I was quite thrilled to be able to use such an unusual branch for ikebana!

I chose a bamboo container for this arrangement. The delicately latticed bamboo basketwork brought an air of lightness to the space.

I arranged the fruit around the very thin branches...as if they were bursting right out of the container!

Here's a top view.

And just when you thought the arrangement is complete, I added a thicker branch with an opposite movement...just to surprise you with something unexpected! :-)

Here is the complete arrangement. I hope you like it. --Miyako

A very special thank you to Patti and Bob for always bringing interesting branches to me!

Ikebana Demonstration At SMU

Added on November 16, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Last Thursday, Nov 14th, I had the chance to give an ikebana demonstration at St. Mary University in Halifax.

It was for the Introduction to Japanese Culture class in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.

It was great to be around young people. Their enthusiasm gave me energy. They posed many interesting questions. I hope I was able to answer them adequately!

The following day, some of the students even dropped by the shop to say "Hello" and told me they had enjoyed the presentation. I really appreciated that!

Special thanks to Dr. Alexandre Avdulov for giving me this opportunity to present what ikebana is all about to your class....and thank you for being my photographer! :-) --Miyako

Ikebana Workshop At ALCC

Added on November 14, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

In the middle of their busy lesson schedules, some students and staff of the Apex Language & Career College found the time to attend an ikebana workshop last Wednesday, Nov 13th.

A small taste of what ikebana is like...

We hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you to all the participants and thank you to ALCC for making the workshop possible.

Special mention to Ms. Yoko Irisawa who did all the organizing and preparing!

O-sewa ni narimashita. Domo arigatou gozaimashita!

All photos are courtesy of Yoko Irisawa. Used with permission.

Nocturne 2013

Added on October 21, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

The annual transformation for our shop from retail store to gallery happened last Saturday, October 19th, 2013.

It was Nocturne: Art At Night in Halifax. We participate every year to showcase ikebana in our fair city.

Let's take a tour! Here is the show window display, arranged by Miyako.

Greeting us at the entrance with a gentle fragrance of eucalyptus is White Harvest, arranged by JB.

JB used an actual pumpkin as a container!

Two arrangements by Marina Sokolenko. Many people were intrigued by the roses. The mauvish-tan roses were from Marina's own garden. A new hybrid called "Choco Loco". As buds, they appear chocolate brown in colour but become paler as they bloom!

Choco Loco roses on the left. Protea pincushions on the right.

Showing Water by Miyako. In this arrangement, Miyako only wanted to show the surface of the water.

The flowers were almost incidental, made to float in order to emphasize the water!

This arrangement by Jean Henshall was all about autumn!

Cattails and wheat stalks!

Patti Vaison's arrangement used only dried material. In fact, Patti was not able to join us on Nocturne night. So, she had had to design an arrangement a week in advance...something that would not wither; thus, the dried material!

The hydrangeas were quite delicate. The eryngium retained their blue colour!

Strongheart by Val Spencer. This was an arrangement that needed to be seen in the flesh to be fully appreciated. The images do not do it justice.

The placement of the anthuriums were creatively done. It was no easy feat. But Val downplayed it and claimed that the most difficult part was deciding where to position the loose silver dollar! :-)

One of the crowd favourites, this arrangement by Sydney Feng imparted an incredible feeling of lightness.

It was as if the chrysanthemums were floating in the air. The thin blades of lily grass connected the two components together.

Hana-Mari by Miyako.

"Hana-Mari" means "flower ball."

Centrifugal by Miyako. This arrangement sought to show strong circular motion. Did you feel it?

The dried silver dollar and allium were given to us by our friend, Beverly. She just popped in the shop one day last summer with an armful of branches. The bittersweet branches were "donated" to us by Patti's husband, Bob. He braved the woodlands to get these branches for us! :-) Thank you both!

We would like to thank everyone who visited our little exhibit. We hope you enjoyed it.

We would also like to thank our students who put in a lot of time and effort to create their arrangements. We could not have done this without you!

A more complete set of images can be seen in our flickr gallery.

My Ikebana: Extending Horizontally

Added on October 8, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Here is another blue vase that I picked up in my recent trip to Japan. You must have guessed by now that I went crazy and bought a lot of flower containers in Japan! :-)

Joan, a regular customer at our shop, is the owner of the nearby Marigold Bed & Breakfast. She knows I love getting branches so when it is time to prune her garden she invites me to go over and take my pick. My latest haul were branches that had many, many smaller stems.

The tiny branches were interesting but because I wanted to show a strong horizontal line, I decided to remove the small branches. The intricate little branches had the effect of diminishing the momentum of the horizontal.

In contrast, I used the branches in their original form on the right side of the arrangement. I created a slightly widening fan-like shape as an offset to the narrow horizontal line on the left.

Here is the whole arrangement. I hope you like it. --Miyako

My Ikebana: The Blue Vase

Added on September 24, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

Another flower container that I was able to unearth during my recent trip to Japan was this blue vase. Isn't it pretty? This is my first time to use it.

For today's ikebana, I did have a variety of colourful flowers to choose from but I decided that the simple yellow of the alstroemeria would be the perfect companion to the blueness of the container.

I also had some wonderfully leafy weigela branches to work with. But, as much as I loved the little stems branching out of the main branch, I found my clippers snipping away at a furious pace until I ended up with only a strong, simple line. My guess is that it all came back to that desire to show off the container. That was also the reason why I left the lower portion empty.

Here is the whole arrangement.

I hope you like it. --Miyako

P.S. If you are wondering if we have this vase for sale at our shop, the answer unfortunately is "no". I only found it in a little antique shop in Tokyo!

My Ikebana: Taking Care Of Weeds

Added on August 23, 2013 by the ikebana shop.

The Japanese Knotweed (fallopia japonica) -- this plant is considered a weed and very invasive. There's a lot of them growing in our parking area so I decided to help myself with some!

Though not at really related to the bamboo, its stems are also hollow and has raised nodes. I stripped the branches of their leaves and focused on this interesting characteristic of the stems for this arrangement.

For my container, I took two crystal glass candleholders and put one on top of the other.

I played around with straight lines and circles. I lined up the stems horizontally against the vertical grooves of the crystal. The hollow circular cross-section of the stems added round elements into the arrangement.