Time for Decorative painting a.k.a. Folk Art

 The school needs some help with crafts  - could I help them out? I've dragged out my brushes and got inspired. Some of these items have been in my craft cupboard, I am ashamed to say, for five years! High time for them to have a new life, and this helps the school a little.

The little plaques read "Mum's cafe - Open 24 hours!"

Method:
These simple daisies and violets are a combination of drybrushing and stippling. No intensive stroke work needed here.The photo frame's backgroup is sponged with Green oxide and warm white tints.
I used Jo sonja's Gouache and Brilliant Violet, Ultramarine blue, Pine Green and Warm white. The roses were a combination of Red Violet Burgundy and Warm white. Green Oxide for the rose leaves.

A parent always needs a wooden spoon, for cooking, of course!

I have two free folk art and Rosemaling projects on my website: www.forestwoodfolkart.webs.com
 But I will upload a small pattern here if you are frightened of doing these patterns freehand.

Grab some paint and a brush and start decorating useful household objects. It will brighten your home and unleash your creativity. Set up can cost as little as $10.00.
 I use some paper towel dampened and wrapped in greaseproof paper  for a cheap disposable palette.

Copyright Amanda McLaughlin 2012
I will be pondering about how many of you will be tempted to try the above design... It is fairly simple. Breathe and Enjoy!

Decorative painting project - Pansies

It was time for another family 21st party and I always try to give them something memorable. Something that is personal and lasts, and something to ponder about!!! So I had one day to complete it, so what could I do? After much pondering in the wood stash, I found a really lovely turned powder bowl, that miraculously had already been base coated. What luck?

Base layer of flowers. Leaves complete

I looked at it and saw pansies, so that is what I painted. Quick and easy but the finished item would hopefully be elegant!!

Pretty Pansies Project

Started with blended leaves.

I use JO sonja's colours but you can use any acrylic colours you choose.

1. Paint base colour outlining sections with a comma stroke in Hookers green and raw sienna ( Raw sienna is a good toner that, if mixed with all the colours you use, will tie the whole project together.)
2. Begin highlighting by using a lighter green, toner plus dash of yellow or warm white to lighten, but not too dramatically.
When you paint over the previous comma stroke, don't completely cover it, simply shorten the stroke so that the base colour is still seen underneath.
3. Highlight again with another shorter stroke, either by adding more yellow or warm white. Keep the brush fairly dry when doing this final highlight.

4. Add vein with a liner brush using a combination of mid to dark greens. Also outline the leaves haphazardly, that is hit and miss. Dont' make the outline so constricting that it goes completely around. Leave gaps here and there and your eye will fill in the rest of the detail. You will find this looks more natural and gives you areas of light and dark.

5. Glaze with Red violet, and this is quite a watery mix. I glaze only one side of the leaf to create a natural shadow.

Lid complete - just have to rub some gold around the edge

Pansie are a yellow mix, pink mix and blue. I used Raw sienna as a toner with all these colours. Paint the petals in strokes curling towards the centre. Edge with Warm white on your liner brush and roll the paint off the brush here and there for a turnback of the leaf.

Centres and stamens are a black colour, I mixed blue and green together to get a browny black and then small yellow or red strokes, and two small warm white comma strokes for the stamens.

Don't forget the calyxs of the flowers too, for the three flowers that are reversed.

Voila, would any twenty one year old girl be disappointed with this as a present from ones Aunt? Well I hope not!!!
Something to ponder about...

Painting bonanza

Holidays are great for giving me spare time in the mornings... NO school lunches to prepare, no school drop offs, so what is my morning routine? Exercises firstly, of course, some simple Yogic stretches and then while the cool weather holds rip in to the piles of prepped and bare wood projects just begging for some decoration. 




It is surprising what can be achieved in 2 hours, items that have been sitting in my storage cupboards for years... shame shame, shame...

Some garden signs that made great xmas presents for friends and family

Traditionally Hallingdal Rosemaling is a symmetrical painting with the scrolls being the  main feature, rather bold and heavy with little shading. Perhaps it reflects the culture of the people, hardy and bold???  Often painted on warm orange red backgrounds, it is also found on "Farmers Blue" but I choose basic black and this appeared to work well. The design I painted this morning is a design by Gayle Oram and took me just over three hours to complete. A nice decorative door for my wine carrier.. Surely a talking point amongst my painting friends....

This is a German bridal box design that I painted last week.

 I thought it might look nice on this handy cheeseboard / paddle.

Using Glossies I painted a plate in Scandinavian xmas colours... simple but elegant.

This just goes to prove that you can make time to do things that you want to achieve, just keep the focus and determination, which is something for me to ponder about....

Rosemaling plate Oils/acrylics Rules and Telemark Technique

Rosemaling - the traditional painting of Norway!

Ah, the joy of painting. So little time and so many pieces of wood to paint.... the folk artist's lament! Determined to get something painted this week, I traced a pattern on a base painted plate. I will share a few of the secrets to successful painting here.

For more on the history of Rosemaling, click on this link:
http://forestwood.webs.com/norwegianfolkart.htm

For the uninitiated, oils are quicker to paint because they blend so easily and beautifully, but take up to six weeks to dry....

On the other hand acrylic paint dries fast, does not give so much coverage and as for blending colours and shading/highlighting in acrylics.... well that has developed into an art form all by itself. It can be difficult to get a gradual blend of acrylic colour, even with chemical assistance such as retarders and various mediums that assist you to work the paint while keeping it open... that is slowing the drying process down. This can be an advantage and a disadvantage. Acrylics can be varnished several days after completion, but can easily develop holes or harsh shading lines. Even using wet -on-wet, you sometimes end up with a muddy mess that is much easier to avoid with oil paints.

I had the pleasure of guidance and tuition in Telemark techniques, from a great Norwegian friend, Mr Bjoern Pettersen, a master Telemark Rosemaler from Drammen, Norway. In painting this plate, I have followed his technique and palette. You can see some of his work here:
http://www.rosemaleklubben.org/main.asp?page=Galleri


My palette is set out according to colour family, each in the centre row, with respective shades above and highlights below, and of course, the Basic colours on the left.




Rule No. 1
Colour Harmony Choose your palette wisely and don't be confined by the cool/warm colours of contemporary painting.
Bjoerns Telemark Colour families consist of green, red, blue and yellow family colours. He has developed this palette himself and it works wonderfully well in the traditional sense.


Painting Technique
First I laid in the scrolls, with their respective shade and highlight. It is none too balanced here, but I promise you that will come later. Scrolls are painted with a long handled flat brush in a Pettersen technique.



Rule No.2
Always paint for balance, so that if you divide your piece into quarters, each colour family will be represented in each sector.


Next step involves the application of paint on the flower and leaf shapes.
This requires the painter to paint hearts or half hearts, scrolls and c strokes to form flower shapes. I also like to paint the two shapes at the base of the flowers green, as they symbolise a flower calyx, (or small petals located at the base of the flower in nature, for those botanically challenged readers!)


Rule No. 3
Aim to not have the same colour family next to each other in painting each petal.... calyx excepted! You can see in the above photo, that I broke this rule, (the rebel that I am inherently am) beacause I was a little stuck and have 3 greens next to one another, but it looked ok and was necessary to qualify Rule No. 2 "Balance".

Flowers and scrolls completed

Now is the fun and most individualised part of Rosemaling... you can add your embellishments.... you can be as busy or as quiet in applying these as you like. This is what makes each piece your own! When I first started painting Telemark Rosemaling in oils, I tended to overdo the embellishments.... and the design can then become overwhelming and too busy. Bjoern helped me to know when to stop when painting embellishments and extra touches...


Individual embellishments on scrolls and flowers

Rule No. 4
Know when to stop with embellishments


Now all one has to do, is sign your work, wait for the oil paint to dry and then varnish....!!! Your project is complete.

Feel free to contact me with any questions on the comments box below....

I hope this blog post has provided some insight into this little known art form, which for me is mesmering in its dynamic impact on the eye. Something for painters to ponder about.

Happy painting,
Amanda

Painted Traffic light control boxes

What is better than a boring grey steel box? A bright colourful one, of course! It might be a little distracting to drivers, but when sitting waiting for the traffic lights to change at an intersection, it chases away the boredom.

What is more, the tenders are called each year by the municipal council authority, and this can be a great way for struggling artists to make some money, or engage the use of volunteers and community workers in projects. The diversity of themes can be interesting to ponder about.

Blind Drawing: Fun, good practice and Swap idea

Here is my first initial blind drawing. My vegetable patch in the back yard. One can just make out the garden edging and the tomato plants, and stakes.


I used a soft B pencil which made a nice effect when I drew on the rough gesso finish of a hard cardboard backed frame. I painted a little colour in a pen and wash technique and then soaked it in tea overnight. Added a little penwork.

Not too bad for a first attempt and I surprised myself by how much my right brain could do without the dominant left hemisphere taking over. see more here:

A "Blind" drawing for 20 minutes of a very mundane object can lead to a quite unusual artistic creation. Yet if you let your dominant logical side take over, I feel sure it would be quite different as the left will pull up the objects in site from its catalogue of known things to draw. This will result in a standard version that you might have drawn as a child, and will not be a drawing of angles and shapes in front of you. Yet it is precisely angles and shapes that your mind needs to concentrate on in order to draw better. Left brain sees the whole object and tries to get your hand to replicate it. Right brain sees negative space, angles and shapes which let the drawing become more fluid, more natural and more realistic.

And then you can play with a lot of colour and effects... that is the fun part!

good luck....