Freestyle with winter material

Attending the International class at Sogetsu Kaikan in Tokyo I was given the choice of either doing a freestyle arrangement or follow the class theme. I chose to do Freestyle using Bittersweet berries that have interesting branch formation and red/purple Cordyline. I selected a large yellow container with a slit down the side.

Fixing the material in place proved challenging because I wanted the Bittersweet branches to hang freely from the container, so a single cross bar help solve this issue, but not completely. To add interest, and contrasting colour I knotted several Cordyline leaves, then inserted them low in the split while another cluster of leaves just started to reach out the top of the container. I was delight with the colour palette yellow and purple but need to work on ‘inventing’ more successful technical fixing methods.

A note when photographing work check the lighting source. Unfortunately the area set up for photographing your weork in the classroom at the Sogetsu Kaikan has a spotlight on the subject thus creating shadows which can sometime make the image look blurred or double the amount of material.