Ikebana and us

Floral Beauty At its Best By Express Features Published: 24th November 2014 06:17 AM

  Click on the link below for the exhibition album. Sogetsu Study Group, Chennai celebrates 375 years of our city - Sogetsu Chennai - Picasa Web Albums

Snapshots from our exhibition Click on the link above for a close peek at our annual exhibition.  From cycle wheels to clothes clips, thermocol packs, to coconut shells, everything has an artistic value and helps our creative energies. Chrysanthemums, lilies, crotons, orchids, bottle brush, palms, dressina and jerberas, are just some of the wide variety of material used.  Pods and berries, roots and shoots, you will find them all. Each composition has a bit of Chennai in them, as we celebrate our city's 37th Anniversary, so come and take a look! a close-up of the centrepiece Mrs Nakano inaugurates as Anuja looks on The artists!

Celebrating Chennai's 375th anniversary with Ikebana

October 15th 2014  Our October workshop was on working with unusual materials or vases and creating abstract compositions. Ambika demonstrated a couple of arrangements before the assembled members tried their hand at it.  It was an exciting and invigorating workshop, with a wide array of material and containers. Ambika's first arrangement, seen below, was with four bits of packing material ( soe ), that she rested on a bubble wrap sheet.  The strong shin was provided by a roll of chart paper discarded by her son!  The hikae anthuriums and the jushis coloured seeds added to colour to the composition. "Urbania" The second arrangement was created in a machine-cut hollow brick, which had an interesting texture, as well as six spaces created by the structure of the brick. Umbrella plant was amassed as two heavy lines, while the purple and green chrysanthemums were also massed for colour. In order to provide depth, a few of the umbrella plant stcks w...

16th Sept 2014 Our September workshop featured sensei Meenakshi Sarin demonstrating with combination vases, followed by a workshop where the members also worked with combination vases. Both her arrangements were with nagiere vases, though completely different in texture and style. Her first arrangement was with a pair of glass vases. Meenu filled the vases with formica strips from the carpenter working in her home, creating an interesting effect.  The strips also served as a fixture for the strelitzia and umbrella plant in the arrangement. Her second arrangement was this beautiful pair, elegantly complemented  with the heliconia.  The graceful bamboo and the variegated dressina added depth to the creation. It was a wonderful start to the workshop, and then it was time for the members to try their hands, and everyone worked with enthusiasm. The vases were all different and there was a variety of material on display as well. Ambika used a pa...

21st Augut 2014 We met for our August workshop at the ABK AOTS Dosokai centre.  Sensei Molly Cherian gave a demonstration on "The Colour Red" using a moribana and a nagiere vase. Sensei worked wonderfully with materials found around us in Chennai. Gulmohar flowers used for the first time in our workshops.  Sensei Molly suggested that they should be cut early in the morning, given a good drink of water, and then they could be used. What better way to explore "red" than with the Mayflower, which paints our cities red in the summer! Sensei Molly's second demonstration in a nagiere vase By Divya, who used large red jerberas dramatically. By Sensei Meenakshi who had red circles in her dry material to complement the white vase and balance the anthuriums. Zaitoon - the red anthurium against the white plate made for a lovely contrast. Rupa worked with orchids Chitra - the vase set the tone for a bold, dynamic arrange...