Mike you reveal more than you know with this comment. Good luck, I hope you find what you are looking for.
Tim - Micheal Hegedorn's trees are wonderful. He has such a great touch. You can see master, Shinji Suzuki's influence...or did Hegedorn he pick Suzuki because he likeed his style. I would love to see what he would do with some tall eucalyptus.
There is something about some of Ryan Neil's trees that I don't enjoy. I think it is because he has a set of branching shapes that he uses when he is creating a 'natural look'. Those patterns become recognisable so it looks more contrived than when someone is clearly not trying to create a 'natural tree'. There are couple of Australian's that have adopted a similar style on native material. At first it looks cool, but then you can stop seeing those same shapes.
Let's finish this thread off with somethings to ponder:
Why is bonsai obsessed with old trees, why don't we make young trees in the first flush of life?
Why do we think originality has such cache? Originality in art only became a thing in the early 20th century. There are million trees in a forest; what is wrong with having one of them on your bonsai bench, straight, sparse, unloved just like all the others?
Cheers,
S
PS just to annoy some of you more Marou Stemberger