Bonsal sketching: A valuable learning experience

摘要

One can discover beautiful trees almost anywhere, be it in the park nearby or while traveling. To sketch such a tree or a bonsai, from the preliminary sketch to the completed work, steady hands are needed, and a practiced eye is needed to choose suitable subjects, create a sense of depth through perspective and use various points of view. My inspiration for sketching bonsai trees came from none other than our guru, the late John Yoshio Naka, who visited India in 1981. The number and quality of sketches made for our members were just out of this world for us novices in my local study group. It took more than two decades after Naka's visit to study sketching of trees. The idea got an impetus when Rob Kempinski visited us in 2005. He is very good at sketching the "future bonsai" in just a few minutes.