Tony Bebb at Bimer's August meeting

[Bougy Fan]

Yesterday we had Tony Bebb come and give us a demo on a corky bark elm the club purchased. The tree is very sizeable but presented some challenges with little branching and a large "knob" from where a trunk chop had been preformed some years ago

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Tony is a great artist and took us through the process of selecting a front for the tree, starting with the roots. Then he worked up to the movement of the trunk and the available branching. Finally with some input form the audience the best front was selected that incorporated all 3 elements to present the best tree.

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He pruned back the branching removing everything that was not necessary and decided on an unusual design which he termed as a "event" styling. This represent the tree leaning slightly but not windswept, with the wind blowing the branches at this moment in time, like a photograph. First he carved back the ugly lump

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Then he wired everything else that was left to great effect. The audience was very pleased with the end result, as was Tony

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It was a great afternoon and I found myself inspired to go home and do some work on my trees. Thanks Tony !

[Watto]

Thanks for the story and photos, really good to see the development of trees and if everyone goes home after the event and works of their trees even better.

[Boics]

Good thread.

Thanks for the effort to share.

I think Tony has taken some styling advise from Bodhi!?
Or is it the other way around....