A Morning of Folk Painting

Even though my head has still been suffering from January-itis, I ventured into the studio (just a fancy word for the room at the end of the shed) to try and get the creative juices flowing.

I did the best thing I know to whet the appetite - a frolick through the pages of my folk painting books, collected over many years.  Although I have quite a few of these books, there used to be many more, but I ruthlessly culled through them some time ago, only keeping the ones that were my favourites.  One day I'll do a post and show you the ones I kept. 
Of course, most of these are by my favourite folk painter, Jo Sonja Jansen. 


Anyway, this is the book I picked to doodle out of - the 'Painted Tin' book.

I like the naive-ish/rusticky (don't you just love making up words!) style of these tin pieces, so I played around with some of the ideas to put on mini canvases.

Can you see the red jug on the top left?

I used that piece to paint this one first.

It made me so happy to just sit and paint and create this little birdy.

There hasn't been a lot of time lately to do things like this. 

I am now the carer for my sick mother, who we have just moved from Victoria to NSW to be near us.  That was 3 days after Christmas.  We had my sister's wedding with lots of visitors before that, etc. etc. etc.

So, to just sit and doodle with a brush, was, to say the least, refreshing.

I know I managed to crochet my afri-bag, but crochet is different.  You can just sit down at night and do it without much thinking.  Painting is different.  My husband doesn't appreciate paint splatters on the sofa.....

Anyway, after doing the first one, I decided to paint two more, but different.

A pale background, with the bird facing the other way and a few other little changes.

And a purple one, which looked like this half-way through -

And progressed to this -

And finally this -

Here are my 3 little birds in a row.

Cheers

Fi

I Feel A Phase Coming On..

I found this beautiful project packet over at my all time FAVOURITE folk artist' web site - Jo Sonja Jansen

It's making me feel the tingle in my fingers, the itching to pick up a paint brush, the yearing to squeeze out all those yummy colours from the multitude of paint tubes lying in my cupboards.

I learned to paint what I call Folk Art (but others may know it as tole painting, decorative painting, etc) about 21 years ago.

I was first drawn to it when I saw an article in a magazine here in Australia.

The story was about a woman who decided to rediscover her Scandinavian roots, and took up the Norwegian form of folk art, known as Rosemaling.

The image in the article was of a pair of skis that she had painted in this style.  I was immediately drawn to the simplicity and beauty of the design -  simple, flowing strokes and scrolls in warm, yet vibrant colours, against a dark background.

I signed up for class and off I went.

Folk Art painting really took off in Australia, and around the world.  I eventually became a teacher and published books, but I couldn't help thinking that we over the years, we were losing something by swapping the original simplicity for more complicated and clever designs and techniques.

Things must change over the years, but for me, everytime I saw work like that in the Jo Sonja image, I yearned to get back to the original simplicity.

Don't get me wrong - I love to paint rose bouquets and garden scenes etc. but it is the accessibility of simple folk art painting that I keep coming back to.  Anyone can pick up a brush, practice some strokes, and with a few basics under their belt - away they go!

Like crochet, or knitting, the action of the strokework can be therapeutic in effect. 

I would often just doodle away on paper, not meant for any other purpose, other than to satisfy my desire to have brush in hand, and feel the motion of paint and brush on a surface.

For those of us involved in creative pursuits, I think we do it for the roughly the same reasons, whatever the craft.

We love the colour and the ability to make our own colour choices. 

We love the tactile quality, be it wool, thread, paint or fabric.

And we love the freedom to create a world around us that communicates to others how we feel and what we love.

Cheers

Fi