Telemark Rosemaling Tutorial

This weekend marks the 140th anniversary of a Scandinavian Association or club in this state. To mark the occasion, there is a street festival tomorrow and I have been given charge of a craft stall. Being primarily a painter, I have been busy preparing some items for sale. I decided to share the development of a Telemark Rosemaling project with you.
Telemark Rosemaling is the traditional painting of Norway. It reached its zenith in the early 20th Century after Norwegian independence, when a revival movement popularised everything that was Norwegian. It origins date back to religious art forms and the acanthus leaf. In the isolation of the Norwegian countryside, these new fart forms slowly developed  into an individual style that differed according to the valley or regions from whence they came. Examples include: Telemark, Rogaland, Hallingdal and others.
Telemark is characterised by free flowing, dynamic scrollwork, and asymmetrical designs.  A good introduction to Rosemaling is found in Aarseth's Rosemaling Designs, by Sigmund Aarseth. You will also find a free pattern and project on my website: www.forestwood.webs.com
I painted a wooden Rubbish bin and  I will include a small tutorial on painting and designing freehand.

Telemark Rosemaling Tutorial
You will need:
Acrylic paint
Prussian Blue
Smoked Pearl,
Warm White
Filbert or flat brush, about 1/4- 1/2"
Good liner brush, say size 1 or a Quill liner
Sandpaper #400 - #600
Wooden piece
Palette: I make mine disposable for acrylics, by wetting some ordinary kitchen paper towel and squeezing it so it is damp, and wrapping greaseproof paper over the top.
Step 1. Basepaint piece chosen colour scheme. I picked Jo Sonja's Prussian blue and lightened it down with a creamy colour ( JSonja acrylics Smoked Pearl) Two coats. Allow to dry.
Step 2. With non powdery chalk or chalk pencil, chalk in some guiding points, like the root of the design and outside border. If you don't want to paint freehand, you could chalk in the main scroll lines and use a outline for the flowers. Once you get the hang of the shape of the flowers, and what your brush can do, then you can simply mark an x for where the flower will go and its orientation.
You will find a short video here:

Design:
N.B.When designing, keep in mind Balance of shape, size and element. If you divide the design in quarters, there should  be a part of the major elements in each. Each quarter should have an equal measure of postive and negative space. Look at the design upside down to distract your left brain from interpreting, giving you a fresh eyes to see any design faults.
Step 3. Load a filbert ( flat with rounded tip) or flat brush in size appropriate to the width you want the scroll to be in darkest value, on ONE EDGE ONLY. In this case: Prussian blue. On the opposite edge, load Warm white or your lightest value. Flatten the brush on the palette so that the colours mix. Repeat.
Step 4.  Begin painting the scroll from the top down, applying pressure as you go, so the brush widens, and releasing pressure as you near the end of the scroll, as this will narrow the stroke at the design root.
Step 5.  Repeat the stroke if needed, and add extra shade ( the darkest value) on the outside of the scroll, to enhance the contrast. Be careful: Acrylics dry quickly and you may need to use a retarder medium to slow the drying time, giving you more time to play with the design.

Step 6. Paint remaining scrolls in same manner.  Try to have them all merging towards the root point.
Step 7. Begin to block in the flowers using shape following strokes, comma, or leaf shape ( S and C strokes) as appropriate. These can be quite casual and double load your brush again with light value on one side and dark value on the other to give your project a natural blended look. Don't worry too much about shaggy edges here, as the liner work will tidy that up.
This is also a free style of painting, it is not Fine Art, and the peasants that originally painted these pieces had little or no training in artistic techniques. So don't stress trying to make it perfect when it is not meant to be so.
Try to achieve a balance of colour as you go. If the brush has blended really well and the light value is lost, add some extra warm white to your cirty brush (ie. don't rinse it clean in water, just wipe on paper towel to remove excess colour.)

Once you have blocked in the flowers, and are happy with the distribution of colour, you can begin the liner work.
Warning: Liner work is very addictive, and it is easy to get carried away with the embellishments and make the design too busy. Beware! You can always add an extra stroke, later, but rubbing out can ruin a design.
You may also like to try adding something like flow medium to your paint to do some liner work. This will help a beginner. Practise a little on scraps of wood or paper first to get the hang of the brush.
Step 8. Scroll Details
Begin by adding enough water to your paint puddle to ensure a inky consistency. Load the brush in the paint and pull it through twisting it gently a little before you lift it from your palette. Place tip on project and gradually increase the pressure allowing the brush to widen the stroke, then release the pressure as you direct the brush tip towards you.
N.B. For best results, liner work should vary in thickness. The last thing you want is for all the outlines to be the same thickness. Variation creates interest in the design.
Outline all the scrolls in a casual manner. Try to move your arm as opposed to just your hand. This helps to create a sense of movement. Be confident. You can clean up any errors, carefully with a cotton bud or Q-tip.


Step 10. Flower details
Outline flowers in same technique with your liner brush. Be individual and don't follow the same outline each time.
Step 11. Embellishments
Add some small detail strokes with a quill or liner brush. They are completed similar to a reverse comma. Starting off with very light pressure and pressing fully down on the completion of the stroke. I double loaded this brush in the picture here, first loading in blue and then dipping the tip of the brush in white. This gives a white stroke with a blue tip. This stroke is very typical of what you see in traditional rosemaling works. Know when to stop. Overdoing it can make a design look too busy!!

Step 11.Borders
Now you have it! Almost all Rosemaling works have a border design, which can be as individual as you like. I used s strokes around the edges of my box.
All you need to do is allow time for the paint to dry - which can be anything from 2 days to a week depending on weather conditions, oils can take up to 6 weeks to fully dry.
Then a coat of varnish will seal the deal! If you are wondering what type of varnish to use, that is a can of worms to ponder about. Experiment with  a few brands and types to see what works. I like to use a matte or a gloss spray varnish for speed. But equally good are the brush on varieties, or even final coat, which is a wipe on polymer. Oil based paints require oil based ( non yellowing ) varnishes.

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

And they said the Vikings were bloodthirsty?

Popular British empire history paints the Vikings as a marauding bloodthirsty pirates that used to pillage and raid the residents of Anglo Saxon England. Some claim that although there were raids on England and other coastal countries, the majority of Vikings led a peaceful life, but that in order to assist the spread and adoption of Christianity, myths pervaded about their bloodthirsty pagan rituals and fearsome callous immoral ways.... however, archaeology throws a different light on this, as new evidence is uncovered. One site in England has archaeologists buzzing... as it seems the peaceful residents of England also had mean streaks... read on....below regarding an archaeological find in Britain that reveals Vikings may not have been the only ones to practise sword bases execution in a mass genocide.....but on a lighter note, I have taken something creative from my supposedly "bloodthirsty" viking blood.....

Rosemaling is my favourite art which has its roots in viking history from over 1000 years ago. Some of my collection can be viewed here:

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Get your own

Roving Vikings in the 8th.century copied the Greek and Roman acanthus leaf design. They used these to carve the form of the leaves on their war ships as a decoration and protections from all evil spirits, sea monsters and other dangerous threats that might face them during their long journeys from the North to other distant places in the world.
However, not all the Viking's lives were saved by the acanthus carvings on their ships....

Article found in Extract from Joan Dahl's DVD on Rosemaling....

"ARCHAELOGISTS FIND MASS VIKING GRAVE IN WEYMOUTH ENGLAND

An analysis shows that many of the men suffered wounds thought to relate to the process of decapitation.... (gruesome find!)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS* 51 bodies were unearthed near the site of the 2012 London Olympics
* On Friday, scientists announce the men were Vikings from the Dark Ages
* The men, who were beheaded, were found near the Olympic sailing venue
* Carbon dating places the men in the time period from A.D. 890 to 1030


London, England -- They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave.
Their resting place was unknown until last year, when workers excavating for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth, England, unearthed the grave. But questions remained about who the men were, how long they had been there and why they had been decapitated.


On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men's teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand years ago. They were killed during the Dark Ages, when Vikings frequently invaded the region.
"To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development," said David Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology, which excavated the remains. "Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual and presents an incredible opportunity to learn more about what is happening in Dorset at this time."


Radiocarbon dating had already placed the remains between A.D. 890 and 1030, before the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England.


Teeth ID beheaded Vikings
Scientists from the British Geological Survey then went further and analyzed the men's teeth to find out exactly where they were from. Isotope analysis of teeth can reveal clues about a person's drinking water, and in turn the climate they came from, said Jane Evans, an isotope geochemist at the survey.


"What we found was all of these guys came from a climate that had to be colder than Britain ... probably Sweden and Norway," Evans said by phone Friday. "One guy had such a signature of such a cold climate that he probably came from above the Arctic Circle."
The isotopes also show the men had eaten a high-protein diet, comparable to known sites in Sweden. It means the men were probably Scandinavian Vikings who were executed by Anglo-Saxons.


Evans and her colleagues at the British Geological Survey's NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham, England, analyzed 10 of the skeletons over the course of six weeks.


This is the best example we have ever seen of a group of individuals that clearly have their origins outside Britain.
--Jane Evans, an isotope geochemist at the British Geological Survey


"These results are fantastic," Evans said. "This is the best example we have ever seen of a group of individuals that clearly have their origins outside Britain."
Many of the executed men suffered multiple wounds, inflicted by a sharp-bladed weapon, to the skull, jaw and upper spine, all thought to relate to the process of decapitation, the Dorset County Council said.


Some men show evidence of other wounds, including a cut to the pelvis, blows to the chest and stomach, and defensive injuries to the hands, the council said.
The bones still appear cleanly sliced, indicating the men suffered a "sword-based execution," Evans said.


There are also two examples of healed fractures that are unlikely to have been medically treated. In one case, the skeleton's right leg is 5 centimeters, or about 2 inches, shorter than the left, which would have given the person a pronounced limp, the council said.


The burial site was found during work for the Weymouth Relief Road, meant to ease traffic congestion on the highway to Weymouth, on England's southern coast. Weymouth Bay and nearby Portland Harbor will host the Olympic and Paralympics sailing events during the 2012 London Olympics. The leader of the Dorset County Council, Angus Campbell, said the construction of the road had already revealed prehistoric and Iron Age finds.



Researchers are hoping to find further evidence about the men's lifestyles, activity, health and diet, the council said."


My thoughts:

Was it just the Vikings who were bloodthirsty heathens or a "urban" myth designed to promote Christian beliefs and conversions?

Something to ponder about