Crafts Zen Garden Project

Click on Zen Gardens Above to View You Tube Video

Japanese gardens are a living work of art in which the plants and trees are ever changing with the seasons.

Unlike other traditional gardens, there is no water present in Karesansui gardens. There is gravel or sand, raked or not raked, that symbolizes sea, ocean, rivers or lakes.

The act of raking the gravel into a pattern recalling waves or rippling water has an aesthetic function.

The underlying structure of a Japanese garden is determined by the architecture; that is, the framework of enduring elements such as buildings, verandas and terraces, paths, tsukiyama (artificial hills), and stone compositions.

Zen priests practice raking to help them focus their concentration.

Achieving perfection of lines is not easy.

Raking is done according to the patterns and ridges that are desired and limited to some of the stone objects situated within the gravel area.

Stone arrangements and other miniature elements are used to represent mountains and natural water elements and scenes, islands, rivers and waterfalls.

A Japanese garden is never the same and never really finished.

For your Zen Garden assignment, you will need to do the following:

1. Create a box for your sand.

2. Make your sculptural piece of a living subject like a Netsuke.

3. Build a structural building like a Pagoda.

Japanese Netsuke Sculptures (nets'keh)

Small carving usually of wood or ivory serving as a toggle. It would hold together the sash of the kimono.

Pagodas are temples or a place of worship and stand for tiered tower.