FLOWERS (AND ANIMALS) WITH THORNS

The Spring weather in this part of the world continues to be highly variable, as usual for the time of year. 

On Wednesday it was warm and sunny and to my delight I noticed this quiet and very shy visitor while I was sitting on the couch in the living room. 


One of our neighbours refers to this charming creature as 'your echidna'. Which, of course, is not true; but it is a fairly frequent visitor to our garden. This is principally because we have no grass, only leaf mulch, which makes it easier for the echidna to forage for ants and other insects. 


Which is precisely what it was doing between the gaps of the brick paving. We do not often see the echidna as it usually comes into the garden at night and it is only later that we find the holes where it has been digging.


Here the echidna * is drinking from the tray underneath the pot of irises I was recently given by my ikebana colleague Emily Karanikolopoulos.

On Monday this week I attended a Sogetsu Victoria workshop * lead by Elizabeth Angell, photos of which are on the website. Then on Tuesday, at my regular class with Elizabeth, our subject was 'roses' with 'any other material', giving us a free choice. It was interesting to me that the three senior students at the class, without prior discussion, chose to contrast the delicacy of rose petals with dried materials.


Swan used vine with her rich pink roses in a contemporary vase.


Dianne used tortuous willow and an orange rose in a turquoise and blue streaked vase.


I used red roses with dried agave flower stems in a wood fired vase by Ian Jones of Old Saint Luke's Studio * . My ikebana also met the criteria for the exercise of 'incorporating the area in which the arrangement is placed'. I was also interested to see the pattern of shadows on the table top.

Greetings from Christopher
12th November 2016



* Click on the blue text for further information and to see photos.

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